The Receiving End
by PossumSoul
Summary: "I don't know. Somewhere along the line, Castle lost faith in me. He stopped trusting me. He's always been so accepting of me that I... I guess I never considered what would happen when I came back. And now that I am back, I don't know if there's a way I can convince him that what we had was worth fighting for." Post 8x02 (Complete w/ Epilogue)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: First crack at story writing. Plot may already have been done by someone else, but don't care. Stopped reading fanfiction after season six. Still watch the show though. And since everybody seems angry at the writers for the show, I decided to take the bland and unnecessary plot device and do something with it.**

 **Hope you guys like it. I'll introduce more characters next chapter and show you where I'm hoping to take this story. I think the biggest problem with the show at the moment is the writers coming up with evidence, and then throwing together conclusions to fit it, instead of the other way around. In other words, I don't think they even know where they're going with it, think they fell into a hole that they're going to have a hella hard time digging themselves out of with all the Castle fans willing to forgive them.**

 **Anyway, hope you guys enjoy read my story.**

* * *

She hears them, knows they're making final preparations for take off. Her one and only chance to end this. It's all lead to this. The almost deafening hum of the jets engines numbs her senses for a second as she slams the stick of her rental car into park and shoves the door open, all in one quick motion. She takes off running, the blood in her legs pulsing with nerves she's tried to steel without success for the past two hours.

If that jet takes off, who knows how long it would take her to track them down again, how many alias's she'd have to dig through before one of them had just one bread crumb attached to it.

She can't think about that now. It has to end. She slows as she nears the back door to the hanger and pulls her gun. Waiting, listening for movement is pointless and she knows that with the engines of the jets blanketing everything. Maybe it's just the thought that it could finally end. That this is really it. After all this time, the sacrifices given or taken, may finally mean something. Taking one final breath, she moves, gun pointed forward and drawn in close to her chest.

Moving through a short, dark and narrow hall way, she hears the engines of the jet get louder and their pitch grow higher. She can't wait anymore. She quickly moves into the hanger and takes quick assessment of her surroundings. It's empty, a few skids of boxes sitting across the floor, and the air from the engines distorting the space just about the runway no less than two hundred feet away.

The jets sound picks up speed a little more and she knows from the sound that the hatch may already be closed. She can't let him get away. Not after all this. She lowers her gun and runs to make it before it does, her heart pounding in three or four different places inside her body. She makes three long strides across the hanger, her mind focused on stopping Colt from getting on that plane.

Her whole body sends a jolt of shock through itself when she feels something hit her chest hard. By the time it takes for the second to pass while she wonders what just happened, she's already on the cold ground, dizzy and shortness of breath already making it difficult to react.

She sees him slowly step around the corner of the tall stack of boxes. It starts off as fear in the pit of her stomach, but is rage by the time it reaches her heart. She rolls off to the side and quickly gets to her feet, putting a sizable gap between them. Her gun is on the floor, useless to her a few feet behind the man she's hunted with everything she had for far too long. "It's over, Colt!"

He says nothing, his expression still menacingly blank, and starts toward her in a quick walk. She raises her fists and puts everything into the strength of her arm, quickly reeling it back and sending it toward him. Fear and helplessness quickly overwhelms her when she feels her arm trapped and her feet being lifted off the ground.

She hits the ground hard with a grunt, Colt looming over her. No, she can do this. She has to.

She rolls to the side as quick as she can, getting to her feet which has much speed as she can, adrenaline loosening her movements. It's halted when she feels his hand gripping her shoulders, keeping her bent forward. Before she can struggle, she sees his knee thrust up and into her chest. She never felt this much pressure and this much out of breath in a long time, and only one before. But she's never felt this helpless.

His knee is thrust up twice more, but by the fourth time, she can't feel the pain anymore, but feels the breathlessness more than anything. His hands move against her shoulders and feels herself being pulls upward. She can't do anything at this point. Her mind is telling her to fight, fight back with absolutely everything she's got, but he's not letting her. She feels his arms on her and, as if she was a dish rag, he spins her in the air, barreling her in mid air.

She can't breath. Her vision blurs against the lights in the hanger, but sees him standing over her again. She hears him groan, and a second later, her entire side erupts in pain. She can't even beg. She feels tears roll down her cheeks as she limply curls up on the ground.

Everything slows when she feels his boot against her a second time. She feels everything, every moment that she's swallowed and chocked down when she started this floods her mind. But most of all...

"Castle..."

Her eyes flood over in another wave of tears when she remembers him. Remembers all of the moments they shared, moments that seemed insignificant at the time, moments that she knew they'd look back on and know they were important, that they were thinking the exact same thing, but just decided to spend the moment in each others presence, warming themselves in the each others smile. She can feel him kiss her, his lips slowly pressing against hers, feel his hands roam her back. She can feel and can remember everything in a rush of emotion that only takes a second, but feels like a minute.

She rolls onto her stomach, her arm struggling and shaking to try one last time to fight back. She hears his footsteps coming back, stopping when she sees his boots step in front of her. She hears the hammer of her own gun make two clicks, and she knows whats coming.

It's all been for nothing. He'll never know why she did this. He'll never know how much she regrets leaving. Everything she's repressed to focus herself breaks through in this moment she's facing her death. So much she regrets not telling him, so much more she regrets not repeating enough. He'll never know how much she loves him.

"I..."

The lights fade when her gun clatters to the ground.

* * *

Her eyes slowly open, but her vision doesn't focus for a long couple seconds. Her eyes hurt against the white light and she squeezes them closed to get it to stop. She nods and reaches up to rub the crust from her eyes. Her arm feels limp, not in complete control of itself, but she manages to scrap the crust from her eyes and reopen them. She looks around, and the first thing she notices is the IV going into her left arm, second is the monitor just a couple feet away from the bed.

It's a slow recollecting of what happened; the hanger, the plane, the fight. She should be dead, but...

She tries to sit up, but is halted by an extremely sharp pain in her ribs. She only makes it a few inches off the bed before she stops trying. She searches around for the buzzer and finally finds it next to her right side and hits the button as rapidly as she can, her movement still a bit drunken and lethargic. It's a minute or two before she hears the door open.

The nurse, a petite blonde, no more than five feet tall walks in with a smile. "It's good to see you finally awake, Mrs. Beckett."

"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital. How are you feeling?" The nurse asks, looking over her IV, then going to the monitor.

"Which one?" She asks while trying her hardest to push herself upright.

"Lincoln Medical, don't move so much. You need to relax." The nurse urges and softly pushes her shoulders back down to the mattress.

She's too weak to argue. She's tired, but can't fall back asleep. "What day is it?"

"It's the seventeenth." The nurse says and stops to give her her full attention.

"What month?"

"November." The nurse pauses as her expression goes from a soft smile to a concerned frown. "Do you... remember anything from the accident?"

"Accident... wha-"

"Mrs. Beckett." Another voice says from the door. She looks over and sees a man in blue scrubs and long white coat step into the room holding a metal clipboard. "It's good to see you finally awake."

"What happened to me?" She asks, anxiety gnawing at her stomach.

"You were brought into the ER a couple days ago. You were in a motorcycle accident." Her mind goes over everything she can remember and she knows for certain she wasn't in a motorcycle accident. "You've been drifting in and out of consciousness for the last twenty four hours, but not unusual for someone in your position. Now, you've got a few fractured ribs that I'll be giving you some medication for, and your midsection has some pretty big bruises on it. But what I'm most concerned about is your concussion."

"Concussion?"

"It's probably mild, but just to be safe, I'd like to run a CT scan when you're feeling up to it. But in the mean time," The doctor says and moves to the foot of her bed and slides the chart into the rack, "try to get some rest." The doctor turns to leave, but a thought enters her numbed mind.

"Wait," She says, stopping him as he reaches the door, "Who brought me in?"

"He didn't leave his name, actually. Just said that you'd been in a motorcycle accident. I wouldn't worry too much about it, Mrs. Beckett, your in good hands."

Before she can ask anymore questions, or before she can think of any, the door is shut, and she feels her head go light and nod off.

* * *

She feels herself wake up again, quicker to gain her senses than last time she remembers waking up.

"You're awake."

She jumps, the voice striking a chord with her. She quickly finds him sitting in the chair on the other side of the room. "You... You're Castle's father."

He smirks and stands up. "Please, call me James." He says and picks up her chart.

"You brought me into the ER? You were at the airport?"

"I heard about what you were doing. I heard chatter that someone high profile was planning on leaving the country from the air port to connect with a foreign vessel being watched by the coast guard."

"So... you _were_ there. What happened with Colt? Last time I remember he was about to kill me."

"Sebastian Colt is dead. I was sent to do recon on the situation, but when I saw you there, I had to... deffer from my original objective. You are my daughter-in-law after all."

Just then, it all rushes back.

Castle.

It's over. She can go back. "If Sebastian Colt is dead, then it's over, right?"

"With Sebastian Colt dead, the FBI is launching a full investigation into him and anyone he's ever had contact with. It's over."

It's gone. The weight, she can feel it lift in that moment. The weight in her chest evaporates and every thing she's wanted to do, she can see her self doing them. Going back to him, picking up where they left off. She can finally be with the man she loves. "After all this time, it's over."

"Go home, Kathrine. Give Richard my regards." James says and turns towards the door. She would thank him, but a smile on her face is such an alien feeling that it feels a bit overwhelming to know that it's real. She can go home.

She can finally go home.

* * *

He lets out a breath and pulls a phone out of his pocket and dials the number, hearing it ring three times before he hears the line open. " _Hello?_ "

"She's safe."

" _So... it's over_?"

"She believes it is. That's all that matters."

" _Is it really over_?"

"If she knew how deep and how far up this really goes, she'd be on the run her entire life. Believe me, that's a life I wouldn't wish on anyone." There's a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a long sigh.

" _Thank you._ "


	2. Chapter 2

The taxi pulls to a stop and she hands the driver a twenty, stepping out into the light snow drift without a word. An odd feeling starts to gnaw at her stomach as she steps onto the sidewalk. She looks up to the window, feeling a mix of emotions so tight she can't figure out what they are. Excitement, anxiety, fear, joy, happiness, determination maybe. She lets out a short breath she has to push past the lump in her throat and starts toward the door.

She was release from the hospital after a couple days with a prescription and doctor's orders to take it easy. It hurts if she sucks in a breath too deep, stabs when she bends and twists the wrong way. She's grateful to be out of the hospital so quick. Last time, she was trapped for a month and a half and couldn't get out of bed with out assistance. After that, she grew a hatred for hospital. She tried to get released the same day, but the first time she stood up, she only lasted for a few seconds before the dizziness took her.

She opens the door to the lobby, quickly going to the door to the elevator. She hasn't been able to think of anything other than his reaction. And she knows she owes him a lot more than an explanation. In all honesty, she should be more worried about him being angry. She's had two years to think about how her leaving affected him. All this time, she's been banking on him still being Castle. It wasn't until her cab over here that she remembers the look in his eyes as she walked out.

Whether angry with her or himself, she hasn't given herself a chance to think about. She hasn't thought about any of this, at all. She's forced herself not to, as a means of focus. Or maybe it was just because it was less painful. A way to make it easier on herself. Maybe thinking of him more would have made her push herself harder to end it all so she could come home sooner.

The door of the elevator slides open and she steps out. Seeing this hall way, the vision of herself drives itself into her mind and she stops. The cold of her clothes, the sting of anxiety that every breath held as it hit her lungs. She remembers exactly what she was thinking that night as she knocked on his door, but didn't know what was going to happen. She knew what she wanted but that was it.

It isn't until she takes another few steps and the door comes into sight that she remembers the last time she was here. She can't remember the last time she cried harder than when she threw her bag down onto the noisy mattress of a motel just outside the city. Never remembers feeling so broken.

She shakes her head as a gesture to try and literally shake away the memories and just decides to make it quick. She comes up to the door, and without thinking, desire to see him overwhelming, she tests the knob and feels a smile fight it's way onto her face when she feels the door push open. She takes a step inside and stops, scanning the room.

It's quiet. Nothing has changed. It's exactly the way it was when she left. So much so that when she sees the couch, she remembers the fuzziness she felt when they would just cuddle up after waking up on the weekends. Remembers the smell of his cooking when she would come home from a boring day at the precinct when she sees the stools just outside the kitchen. Remembers exactly how it felt being laid down on his bed for the first time when she looks into what used to be their bedroom.

She wants to call out to him. See if he's home, but she doesn't trust her voice not to shake. The memories that continue to flood her mind and senses is something she thought she was prepared for.

She takes another step forward and gently pushes the door shut, turning the knob before it hits the door jam so it doesn't slam and make too much noise. Taking another few steps, she's surprised that it's this quiet. She would think he was out if the door wasn't unlocked. She gently clears her throat and is about to call out for him when she hears a door close in the bedroom. She hears his footsteps, and her heart rate soars.

When she sees him, dressed in what looks like the same burgundy shirt he wore that night, the anxious breath she was holding lets out and she smiles. He's looking down on his phone, a blank expression on his face as he slowly makes his way through the loft. "Castle." She says over tear filled eyes and a shaky voice.

He stops in his tracks just past the couch, no less than ten feet away from her, looking up at her with a knotted brow. "Kate?"

She can't keep herself from him anymore. It only takes her three long strides to make it to him, throwing her arms around his neck, enjoying the fact that she has to press up on her tip toes to do it. When she feels her body against him and her arms around him, her head in the crock of his neck, she feels the tears in her eyes overflow and feels them roll down her cheek and stop where it meets his jaw.

It's a long few seconds before she can feel his hands on her back. They feel cautious, as if he's afraid he shouldn't be touching her. She loosens her arms and slides back down to the floor, unsnaking her arms from around his neck but slowly running her hands up his hand to cup his jaw. "I'm back."

It isn't until she notices his blank, and somewhat angry expression that she notices his hands have fallen back down to his sides. Before she can even piece together what it all means, her heart starts to crack. "Kate, wha-"

"Alright, Rick, I'm..." Her swelling eyes go to the bedroom door, and she feels the breath being stolen from her. A blonde about her height with a pencil skirt and her hair up in a bun has just caused her more heart break than leaving him did. "Oh." She says, stopped in the door way.

She looks up to him, now realizing that her hands are still against the stubble of his jaw. She looks at them and feels them start to tremble. Pulling them off only and inch, she looks back up to his eyes, now realizing how they seem to hold contempt. She feels her feet start to move backward, despite not making the decision of retreat, while shaking her head to end this nightmare.

"Kate..."

She turns and bolts toward the door, hand closed tightly over her mouth in a petty attempt to chock back a sob.

"Kate."

This can't be real. It has to be a dream. He just couldn't do this. She flings the door open and takes off running toward the door to the stair well.

"Kate!" His voice calls from the door.

She grabs the railing along the wall at the bottom of the first set and uses it to ease herself to the ground, ignoring the pain erupting from her sides everything she lets out a sob.

* * *

She sits by the window, chair pulled up to the table, one arm around her abdomen and the other spinning her half empty coffee cup around in a slow circle. She stopped crying, who knows how long ago. But still, she finds herself reaching up and wiping away a tear from her cheek.

It's been two years. She should have known this when she started about how long it would take. Looking back, she was foolish to think she would be coming back to the same man. In the back of her mind, she knew it wouldn't be easy coming back, and know that it would be an almost impossible task to get back to the way things were. But she didn't let herself think about it because she wanted to be with him again.

But now, she thinks back, at how much pain she must have caused him, at how angry and hurt he was. She had just promised him that there wouldn't be anymore secrets and she was sincere. She didn't want to lie to him and had made a promise to herself not to ever again. But when she left to chase Colt down, she didn't explain why. And if she owes him anything, it's an explanation.

"Hey Mr. C!" The barista calls from the counter.

She looks up in astonishment and sees him having just come through the door to the coffee shop. She was going to get herself collected then head back to the loft to try and explain things, but he's here?

"Haven't seen you in a couple years, if feels like! How've you been?"

Castle just looks over to him, his expression still as blank as when she ran out of the loft. "Been busy, Will."

He slows as he comes up to her table and puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "How'd you know I'd be here?" She asks in what feels like the smallest voice she's ever heard come from her.

"I used to bring you coffee from here when you were working a tough case. When I told you about it, we always came here to get away for a while."

She smiles despite the situation at the thought that he remembers that. She looks down at her coffee cup and feels the air between them thicken, nerves starting to get to her. "I was going to come by after a while and..." She pauses when she sees him move to sit down in the chair across from her, "explain things." She continues as he leans forward on his arms. She looks up to him and knows his angry. The calm contempt is plain on his face.

"Explain what?" He asks, but knows from his tone that he's not looking, nor wants her to answer. But after she waits a few moments for him to start telling her how angry he is, she looks up and sees him waiting for her to answer.

"Why I left." She looks back down to her cup, unable to look at his eyes with how hard they're looking at her. "And why I came back."

"It's been two years, Kate."

"I know, and... it was foolish to think that... with how I left things, that we could just pretend like nothing happened, and that you wouldn't move on with someone else." She said, pressing down on the dull pain her heart as much as she can.

"Kate, that was my insurance adjuster." Her eyes go back to him and finds that they hold a bit more softness than the last time. "I went to check on the place yesterday and found that a pipe had burst underneath the sink in the bathroom and was flooded."

"Oh..." She says, trying to hide the fact of how relieved she just got, until something strikes her. "Wait, check on the place? You don't stay at the loft anymore?"

"I moved out last year."

She is about to ask why until a theory comes to mind that, with every passing second, makes more sense and makes her all the more guilty for leaving. When it does, she hangs her head down again, still looking down at her cup. "Castle, I left to go after Locksat." She looks up to him and finds him still staring at her intently. "I wanted to catch the guy that killed McCord, and tried to kill us. I spent two years chasing down every lead I came across until I caught a break last week. They were still smuggling drugs into the country, but never in the same place twice. But last week, I heard that one of the alias's I had a line on had just used a credit card to pay a toll for a bridge leaving the city. I followed them to the air port to stop them, but he jumped me, and..." She stops and spares him from the details. "Long story short, he was about to kill me when I got shot by someone looking out for me."

She looks back up to him, but his expression hasn't shifted in the slightest. "Answer me honestly, Kate. What did you expect when you came back?"

She feels her brow tighten and she leans back. "I-I just-"

"That you could just come back, offer me an explanation and expect me to just forget that you left me?"

"Castle, I-"

"You know, when I proposed to you, I knew. I knew that I just wasn't going to ever be enough. I knew that after we took down Bracken, that you'd need something else to fill that void. And for a while, I thought that you had finally found peace. But I knew, I just knew that you'd always need something to chase. I didn't want to believe that you'd actually chose that over me. Over the life that we had built and struggled for. But I wasn't surprised how easy it came to you."

"Easy?!" She says, angry quickly seeping into her voice. He looks back up to him, but his brow is still straight, unwavering from the stark blankness he's stared at her with since this morning. "Leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

"It was obviously a hell of a lot harder than staying. And you didn't _have_ to do anything. You wanted to."

"I needed to catch the person responsible for my mothers murder." She weakly defends herself.

"The man you killed your mother was Dick Coonan. You shot him when he tried to escape from custody. The man who hired him to kill your mother was William Bracken, who you arrested and was serving life in prison. I thought that's where it ended. I thought you wanted to be happy. But you will never be happy as long as you're not chasing something, Kate. You've were chasing Bracken for so long, you don't know how to stop. And honestly, I can't put myself through trying fruitlessly to make you happy when I know you never will be."

"But Castle," She starts, her hands putting themselves over his, "I love you. I was happy with you, you can't tell me I wasn't. I want to be with you."

Castle's eyes go to her hands and she hears him sigh. "You know what I want, Kate?" He looks back up to her with that same knot in his brow. "I want my wife back."

"But I'm-"

"No." He stops her. "I said I want my wife back. And as far as I can tell, she still hasn't come back." He says while pulling his hands out from underneath hers. She feels another tear roll down her cheek and would continue to argue with him, but leans back when she hears his cell phone ring. "Castle. Yeah, I'll be right there, Ryan." She looks back over to him and sees him stand up. "I have to go." He says and starts to turn toward the door.

But her hand is shooting out and grabbing his wrist before he can. "Rick," She says, meeting his eyes again. "I do love you."

He lets out another breath and looks back toward her. He pauses before he quickly pulls his arm out from her soft grip. "Then you wouldn't have left."


	3. Chapter 3

His eyes meet those of the uniform outside the door to the apartment building, who simply nods and silently allows him inside. After making his way up to the second floor, he starts down the hallway, where he sees another uniform interviewing an elderly woman at her door.

"I hear a bit of a commotion, and came out to see what it was about, and I saw a man."

"Can you give me a description, ma'am?" The officer asks as Castle passes them.

"Tell, dark, short hair maybe. He had his sunglasses on the back of his neck. That's all I can remember."

Castle meets eyes with the uniform outside the door to the apartment at the end of the hallway and steps inside. "What've we got?" He asks, looking down at the body laying sprawled out on the floor, Lanie knelt down next to it with her clipboard.

"Samantha Hughes, twenty nine years old. Cause of death appears to be these stab wounds to her abdomen, but I'll know more one I get her back to the morgue." Lanie starts, circling the wounds with her pen. "She was killed around six AM this morning."

"So neighbors say they heard an argument early this morning, sounded pretty heated." Espo starts from across the apartment as Castle starts surveying the room. Looking at pictures, trinkets, the way the room is arranged, starting to gauge who the victim was. "Witnesses describe him as around six feet tall, buzz cut brown hair, wearing a dark cargo jacket. We're pulling traffic cam footage to see if we can get a hit."

"Married?" Castle asks, coming up on a framed picture of the victim with a man around her age.

"Engaged a week ago. Fiances flying back from Atlanta today from a business trip. He's still in the air so we can't reach him."

Castle stops at the mantle, looking at two tall candle stick holders, the candles melted most of the way down. "Any ID on the murder weapon?" He asks, running his fingers over a circular outline of dust on the mantle in between the two candle sticks.

"Looks like a sharp object, could be an ice pick or a fire place poker."

"Is there red wax around any of the wounds?" He asks, continuing to move around the apartment, scanning the items to get an idea of what happened.

After a moment, "Huh... yeah, there is."

"He didn't mean to kill her."

"You sayin' it was an accident?"

"Stabbing suggests he knew her, they were probably close. The number of stab wounds indicates he was enraged by something." He starts, looking down at a coffee cup, then turning the sleeve and seeing that it came from a chain coffee shop just down the street. He takes a few more steps to the desk against the far wall, looking down into the small trash can next to it, seeing a few more coffee cups, and some receipts. After digging through and reading over them, he stands back up and goes back to the pictures, taking another look at one on the far left of the victim and two other men. "She was having an affair."

Esposito comes up next to him. "How do you know?"

"There's a coffee maker in the kitchen, with high end coffee in the cupboards, but she was going to Starbucks almost every morning at the same time and seeing the same person every time. She keeps this picture away from the ones of her and her fiance." He says, pointing to the one in front of him. "These pictures aren't for her. In every one, it's the two of them. None of just her, or any of their family. The killer knew the both of them. The engagement probably sent him overboard. She probably met him when she was over seas."

"Over seas? Over seas where?"

Castle opens the draw to the table in front of him. "They were Army Reserve."

"They? You think the killer is military?" Esposito asks.

"Where do they teach you to put your glasses in the Army?" Castle asks, moving around him and going into the bed room.

With one look around the bedroom, Castle's profile is complete. "You sure about this, Castle?"

"Samantha was unemployed?"

"Worked from home as a day trader."

"Then why is her alarm set?" Castle asks and moves into the bathroom. "This marriage was for show. Her fiance probably knows she was having an affair. That's probably why he proposed."

"So, I called the coffee shop and they said that Anthony came into work on time this morning, and is still there."

"He'll appreciate force. Go in, make a lot of noise and bring him in. If you just flash your badges, he'll fight. If this he's military and has seen combat, he could be unstable, and might commit suicide by cop. Preliminary profile of our killer suggests a borderline sociopath." Castle says and turns around, starting out of the bedroom. "I'll wait at the precinct." He says, stopping at the body being lifted into a body bag.

His eyes go to the victim, her hair brown and flowing in curls down her head. His mind flashes to her. He'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't feel anything seeing her again. The sight of her watery smile after two years flashes in his mind, but it's shaken out by the sound of the click of the gurney. "Something wrong, Castle?" He hears Ryan ask him.

He looks over to Ryan, then back forward. "I'll be at the precinct."

* * *

Sitting on a steel table, she waits for Lanie to show up.

Castle changed, and she hopes Lanie can explain how. It's clear that he still works for the twelfth. The hopeful part of her says that there's a way she can get through to him. That there's a way she can maybe get the old Castle back. The one she fell in love with.

She wants him back. Now that he's basically rejected her, she looks back at her actions with new eyes, but knows that it's pointless at this point. She knows that the thing lacking when she looks back is the pressure she feels to act, to do something about it. Only thing she feels now is regret. She hopes that he at least knows that she was happy. And in the back of her mind, she knows he's right, but even after all this time, won't let herself admit to it. She has a purpose in life, and him asking her to give up on that is something that she just can't do.

Apparently, even if it means costing her the love of her life.

She hears the doors open, and her eyes go to the gurney wheeling in through the doors. She smiles and slides down from the table. "Alright, Samantha lets get..." Lanie stops when she steps around the gurney and her eyes fall about the woman standing a few feet away. "Beckett?"

She feels herself smile a bit wider, "Hi Lanie."

Lanie's smile bursts onto her face and she throws her arms around her friend. "Oh, girl, how you doin?"

Kate returns her hug and decides not to answer.

"What happened to you?" Lanie asks, releasing her, but keeping her hands on her shoulders.

"It's a long story."

"Well, let me just..." Lanie quickly hustles and pushes the gurney out of the way. After everything is out of the way, Lanie sits the two of them down. "It's so good to see you, Kate!"

"Yeah, you too, Lanie." She responds softly, looking down at her cold hands.

She hears Lanie pause and lean back in the office chair she's sitting in. "Is this about Castle?"

Kate shakes her head to the side a bit and takes a short breath. "I left him to go after the people backing Bracken. I left him to protect him, so they wouldn't target him. I finally got them, but... after all this time, I don't think I can go back. I tried to talk to him this morning and explain things, but he basically said he doesn't know me anymore." The memory of his hard stare sitting across from her briefly flashes in her mind. "I love him. But I broke his heart. I want him back but... maybe I'm just being selfish."

"Kate, I know for a fact that he never stopped loving you."

"It's not that simple, Lanie." She says and looks down at the pair of rings that she slipped back on her finger when she left the hospital. They feel like they shouldn't be there but she can't bring herself to take them off again. "I don't know." She starts, spinning her wedding band around her finger. "Somewhere along the line, Castle lost faith in me. He stopped trusting me. He's always been so accepting of me that I... I guess I never considered what would happen when I came back. And now that I am back, I don't know if there's a way I can convince him that what we had was worth fighting for."

"Castle has changed." Lanie starts. "After you left, he didn't come around for six months or so. Came back and started working cases again completely different. He works cases like a profiler now. But when he came back, he didn't want anything to do with anything but the work. The guys stopped trying to get through to him a long time ago."

"Is it true that he moved out of the loft?"

Lanie sighs a sad sigh, "Yeah. Got it out of Alexis that he said it was too painful living there. Said everything there just reminded him too much of you." Kate reaches up and swipes away a tear from her cheek for what feels like the umpteenth time.

"I love him, Lanie." She smiles as her eyes drift off. "He told me that I would never be happy as long as I'm not chasing something. I don't think I ever told him how happy marrying him made me. I thought that when we got married that... that that was it. That I'd finally found it, that I'd finally found the thing that I'd worked so hard to get. That _we_ worked so hard to get. I never thought I'd have to work even harder to get it back."

"Oh, honey-" Lanie is stopped by the phone on the wall ringing. She groans and answers it. "Morgue. Alright, I'll have the report ready." Lanie says and hangs up. "Listen, Castle's on his way down. They just got a confession out of the killer and they need a prelim on the victim."

Kate nods and stands up. Lanie stands up with her and extends her arms out. Kate smiles for only the third time, but feels like the first time in a long time. "Look, there's someone I think you should talk to." Lanie says, leaning down and writing on a notepad. She rips the paper off and hands it to Kate.

"Who's this?"

"His daughter."

* * *

He makes his way down to the morgue, trying his hardest to keep the images at bay.

It's gotten a lot easy over the past year, especially when he moved out of the loft. Something new, not living in a constant reminder of a life he failed to keep together. He can't even stay in the precinct for longer than a few hours at a time. But for the past few hours, ever since she walked herself back into his life, he's been questioning everything that happened between them, just like he did before. Whether she really meant everything she said, if she was just biding her time by marrying him.

If she just really loved him. If she was really willing to spent the rest of her life with him. If three failed marriages is fate's way of telling him he's meant to be alone. If he should just resign to his fate. If he was fooling to chase after her for four years, and ignorant to think that she was actually happy for the three years they were together. He's tried to convince himself otherwise, that there maybe was a time in their relationship where she was happy, a time when he was enough for her.

But even if there was, he knows it would never last. If it wasn't that day she left him, it would have been the next one, or the one after that. She would have left him eventually, like every one else.

He hardens himself and pushes the doors to the morgue open, where Lanie has the victim on the table. "Hey Castle." She says happily.

He picks up the file in front of him, taking a quick look around. "She was here, wasn't she?" He asks her, starting to read the report.

"Who?" Lanie feigns. Castle just looks over the report, giving her a hard stare. "What was it?"

"The table she was sitting on is the one you keep your purse on, and you let her sit in Esosito's chair."

"She just wanted to talk." Lanie informs, probably waiting for him to ask. He does ask, and doesn't want to know. Just keeps reading over the file on the victim. "Surprised to see her back." Lanie prods.

"Not surprised you're butting in."

"I'm just trying to get my friend her husband back."

"He'll be here just as soon as his wife comes back." He retorts, still not letting his eyes leave the report he has reread twice already.

"You know, the old Castle could never say no to those green puppy dog eyes of hers."

"Her eyes are hazel." He stops.

He looks up from the file to see Lanie grinning devilishly. He closes the file and turns out of the morgue without another word.

* * *

 **A/N: To clearify, I stopped reading fanfiction a long time ago. So I don't know how many other stories are being done or have been done that have this same tone and/or plot structure. I tried to add a twist in the beginning at the end of the first chapter. And I've read some reviews saying that Castles reaction is very realistic, and I'm very grateful for all the awesome reviews I'm getting. I'll try to keep the characters realistic for you.**

 **I hope you like Castles POV. I was thinking of making it third person omniscient, but third person limited I felt worked better for the tone I was going for.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Best review I've gotten so far is from a guest review calling Beckett an emotional vampire. I still laugh every time I say it. But I'll try to make you guys able to forgive her, while at the same time making it believable and most of all, enjoyable. But as for now, as for the 'Kate Haters', as I've heard them called in another review, I think they'll like this chapter. I try to bring out another side of Castle mid chapter. But I'll let you guys decide what to think. You could always review and let me know. Thanks for the feedback! ~PossumSoul**

* * *

She takes a deep breath and looks down at the small piece of paper, matching the apartment number to the one she's looking at. After a tentative battle with herself, she raises her hand and knocks a few times.

After a few seconds, she hears the dead bolt click and then the door slide open. Answering the door is a young man, mid twenties with dark, short hair, staring at her puzzelingly. "Can I help you?" He asks her.

She briefly looks past him and into the apartment before meeting his eyes again. "Hi, um... I'm looking for Alexis."

"Oh, hold on. I'll get her." He says with a small smile and turns around, going into the back of the apartment and leaving the door open. She hears him address someone, and another voice ask who it is. He says he doesn't know, and a few seconds later, she sees Alexis come around the corner, a surprised expression on her face.

"Beckett?" She asks, confusion and surprise straightening her brow.

"Hi Alexis." Kate says, somewhat nervously. Their relationship, at least she felt, was always a bit rocky.

Alexis turns around, her hand touching the boy's shoulder behind her. "Dani, can you give us a minute?" He looks back to Kate, then over to Alexis before nodding and turning around, heading back down the hall way. Kate takes a few small steps inside and Alexis quickly makes her way past her and shuts the door. Kate can see her fold her arms low across her chest out of the corner of her eye as she turns around to face her.

"Lanie... told me where to find you."

"What are you doing here?" Alexis asks, her tone matching that of her father's.

Kate feels yet another pang of guilt stab her and crosses her arms protectively across her chest. "Alexis, I came back to be with him. I still love him. I never stopped. I had to leave to protect him from some dangerous people that I was afraid would target him, and-"

"That's not why you left." Alexis stops her. Kate looks back over to her, about to gently explain before she can see Alexis getting ready to speak again and stops. "You left because you don't care about him. You never have."

"Alexis, that's not true. You know that."

"No, you don't care about him at all. You're probably the most selfish person I've ever met. I watched him put himself in harms way year after year just to be around you, and how do you repay him? You treat him like he means nothing to you! I had to watch as my dad threw himself in front of a bullet for you, and all he cared about was you. And when you finally had the guts to admit it to yourself that he actually means something to you, you lie to him. All you ever did was lie to him."

"Alexis, our relationship is-" She stops herself abruptly, " _was_ complicated. But when it came down to it, we trusted each other. And I could always trust him to be there for me."

"And I guess that only works one way. Because every single time he needed you, you weren't there. All you did was take from him. But I never said anything because you made him happy. But after you left, I... you know, he hasn't been the same since you walked out on him. He's not even my dad anymore. He just waits for the phone to ring in his apartment. He doesn't even write anymore."

That's probably the part that breaks her heart the most. She remembers waking up more than once to find his side of the bed empty and a light coming from his office. He always said that he was dreaming about her and felt inspiration strike him. "Alexis, I know that I've hurt him." She says with a tremble in her voice. "And I can only hope that he has it in him to forgive me. But... I know he may think that I didn't believe in our marriage, but if I could go back and do it all over again, I would."

"A lot of good that does. And honestly, I don't even think you know what a marriage is. A marriage is two people who love each other, who stick by each other no matter what, who trust in each other and who know without a shadow of a doubt that they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other, who don't cower away from the person they're suppose to love more than anything else in the world. And that's all you've ever done, Beckett. You're a coward, and you've hurt him for the last time."

Alexis uncrosses her arms and reaches behind her, pulling the door open and stepping aside. Kate is telling her heart to start beating again and to argue harder and to feircely tell her that she does love him more than anything else, but she doesn't have it in her. All she can do is lift her heavy legs and walk out the door. She takes one step and dares to meet Alexis' eyes and she just steps back and turns her back toward her as Kate walks out the door.

"And Beckett," She hears Alexis say when she's out in the hall. Kate turns around, her eyes burning. "Stay away from my dad."

The door closes hard.

* * *

He sighs the deepest sigh he can suck in and unlocks the door to his apartment. He closes the door behind him, tosses the keys down on the table beside the door and makes his way into the living room off to the left. He takes off his coat, tosses it over the back of the chair and then makes his way over to the table by the window. He pulls the glass forward and picks up the half empty decanter. He pours half a glass, not knowing why when he knows he'll be filling it up in another few minutes.

He takes another deep sigh and goes over to the large window and lifts the glass up to his lips. The scotch goes down his throat and he sets the glass down on the window sill, looking out on the city. He wishes that the case took longer than it did. Ryan and Espo said that it was a new record for him, and that he could always stick around to talk to the fiance, but he didn't feel the need, nor the desire.

He hates coming home though, and knew he would today. There's nothing to distract him. Knowing this, he picks his glass up again and takes another long sip. He's been thinking about their wedding for the past hour. Or trying not to, but the more he tells himself not to, the more he ends up doing it anyway. His heart is reminding him of how in love with her he was that warm evening. And he knows it's no use thinking he might be better off if he never met her. He's been down that road and it wasn't much better than it is not.

He chuckles bitterly and downs the rest of his scotch, then going back over to fill it up again.

There is a part of him that wishes that his want to have his old life back outweighed his anger at her for destroying it. But he always had that same insecurity as he had with his last two marriages. And he knew that she ever left because she wanted more than he could provide her, that he would have a harder time springing back than he did before. Because he thought that that is what made her different. Something as small as him bringing her a cup of two dollar coffee in the morning was enough for her, and the smile she rewarded him with was enough for him. But in the back of his mind, he knew that she'd start craving more than he could give her.

It would start from wanting more from her job than she could get, and eventually, it would be more from her marriage than she could get. What he hates himself for is that he knew it would come to that when he admitted to himself that he was in love with her. And for a while, that's why he thought she didn't love him back. But despite everything, and what he wishes he could just make go away, he wants her back.

He never felt someone loved him as purely and wholeheartedly as she did. And he didn't need her to saying at the end of each breath, he just knew. When she would grab his face and pull him down to her, he could always tell that she wasn't kissing him for the physical connection, but for the emotional connection. He can still remember exactly the way it feels. He shakes himself out of his daze and lifts his glass up when he realizes that he can feel his heart starting to race.

He's startled out of his thoughts by a soft knock on the door and the sound of the door opening. "Dad?"

He feels himself smile, "In here, pumpkin." He calls from the window.

He hears Alexi come into the room, hears her pause before he sees the lights go on. "What are you doing sitting in the dark?"

"Just thinking." He says, hearing her make her way across the room over to him. "Help yourself." He says and lifts his glass to take another small sip. Instead, he feels lift his arm and snake her arms around his torso. He smiles and puts his arm around her and holds her close. "Something wrong?" He asks her.

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

"You know?" He asks her on a sigh.

"She stopped by a little while ago to talk to me."

He can't say he's surprised. Lanie must have given her Alexis and Daniel's apartment. Alexis has been engaged for a few months. She met Daniel while interning at a law office. They leased an apartment together just a few days after they proposed. He's not a fan of Daniel, but he's a good kid, he cares about his daughter and wants to see her happy. He even came to see him to ask for his blessing.

"So?" Alexis starts after a minute or two of silence.

"So what?"

"What are you going to do?"

Castle lets out another short sigh and pulls his daughter closer. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss her. A feeling like this doesn't go away over night."

"But she's been gone for two years, Dad." She says, pushing off of him slightly.

"Alexis, when you love someone the way I loved her, there are very few things that can be done to make that feeling go away. And a part of me is saying... now that she's back, maybe we have a chance to make it work."

"Dad, you can't be serious."

"I'm not saying I'm ready to forgive her yet, but... Alexis, if I have a chance to put my marriage back together, I don't think I can let it just pass by." He says and puts his arm fully back around his daughter again, pulling her back into him. He looks back out to the darkening blue sky his emotions going back and forth so quickly, he doesn't know how to begin to make sense of them. "After all, she's the one I wanted it to work with."

* * *

She hardens herself as much as she can and waits for the elevator doors to open. It's still pretty early in the morning and she hopes not that many people will be in this early.

The doors open and the steels herself, making her way quickly through the precinct and making a straight line for the captains door. She see's him sitting at his desk and knocks lightly. "Come in." He calls.

"Captain Griffin?" She addresses him.

"Ah, miss Beckett. I got your message." The captain, aging late forties, heavy set with a pair of reading glasses on his nose. "Please, come in." Kate steps inside and shuts the door, coming to stand in front of the desk that she gave up. "So, I've read your file." The captain says, lifting a tan folder up and letting it fall back down to the desk. "And quite frankly, I'm concerned."

"Sir?"

"Well, you've resigned before." He states and sits back down, leaning forward and folding his hands together. "That lasted a day before you wanted your job back?"

"Sir, that was-"

Captain griffin lifts his hand to stop her and leans back in his chair. "Miss Beckett, I appreciate your talents, I want you to understand that. You got one of the highest scores on the captains test in the history of the precinct, and your case closure rate speaks for itself. But I'm trying to understand why you're really here."

"This is what I was born to do, Sir."

Captain Griffin pauses for a long moment before nodding. "Okay. I'll consider reinstating you."

"Thank you, S-"

"But," The captain stops her. "There's something I want to you understand." He says and leans forward, taking off his glasses and letting them fall to the desk with a hard clatter. "Mister Castle is a major asset to me and to this precinct. I hired him as an official consultant to the twelfth because both detectives Ryan and Esposito said that he was the best. So I don't want your two's history getting in the way of that. I want Castle focused. And if it becomes a problem, I will not hesitate to transfer you to the evidence room. I don't care what your test scores are. Is that clear?"

She nods, looking Captain Griffin in the eye. "Yes, Sir."

She stands up and makes for the door, and is on her way out. "And detective," He stops her again, she stops and turns around. "Just so you know, Esposito's lead detective. You answer to him."

She swallows the sigh and nods seriously. "Yes, Sir."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Unrelated: 70% of people say that if they thought they could get away with it, they would have an affair. 70%. Am I the only one depressed by that? Glad I'm single.**

 **Anyway, related. Like I said before, I know a lot of you reading this are angry and Beckett right now, which is probably why you started reading this. And yes, I am working toward a reconciliation, they're married for god sake. So, if that's not what your looking for, and are just looking for one, long, drag out fight between two people who love each other, but just don't know how to go about it, then I don't think this is for you, but thank you for reading up to this point.**

* * *

Her soft lips press up to his again, enveloping him in their warmth, her hands running up his chest making sure it doesn't escape. He can feel her nails graze against his skin when she fists his shirt in a slow motion, tugging him down to her. He wants to kiss the rest of her, but doesn't know if she wants him to move away from her lips. Everything, every second is new, every motion a fear that at any moment she might say it's a mistake, though every one that passes tells him it's not, that she wants him to continue, to drive them forward, to finally take the lead for a change.

He can feel his shirt open up. Her cold, shriveling fingers fan out against him and move up to his shoulders, pushing his shirt off him. He moves his lips off of hers and over her cheek, feeling her lightly press against his jaw when he kisses her fully under her ear, tucking away the memory of how she just shuddered for later.

Her arm wraps around his shoulders as she tugs his shirt off. "Kate..." He says, her mewling body halting under him. He can see her eyes glimmer, looking up at him. "Are you sure?"

He can barely make out the edges of her mouth perk up into a smile and feel her hand go to his cheek. "Absolutely."

He hears his phone buzzing in his pocket, he groans as he leans back down to kiss her. After a second, it lets out a ring.

* * *

He feels his eyes open and he reaches out from the covers to grab his phone, buzzing and ringing on the nightstand. "Castle."

 _"Hey bro, we got a body."_

"Alright, I'm up."

 _"I'll text you the address._ "

He tosses his phone back on the night stand, letting himself fall back into his pillow. He hasn't had that dream in a year and a half. He didn't drink enough last night. He throws the covers off and stands up, starting a quick morning routine and is out the door fifteen minutes after getting Espo's call.

He makes his way to the address Espo texted him and heads to the third floor of the apartment building, shutting out everything but what he needs to focus on. The door at the end of the hall is bustling with CSI's coming in and out and police chatter. He enters the apartment, meeting eyes with Ryan, who's interviewing a man in slacks and a green sweater. Ryan nods off to the side, motioning towards the door to the right. He takes a quick look around to the seemingly blank apartment, void of any framed pictures or anything that looks like it has any personal connection, then makes his way into the bedroom. "What've we got?" He asks Lanie, whose standing next to a female body, positioned in the middle of the bed.

"Female, mid twenties, early thirties at the most. At first look, cause of death seems to be strangulation, but I'll know more once I get her back to the morgue. She has ligature marks on her wrists and ankles."

"Sings of sexual assault?"

"Doesn't look like it, but I can't be certain until I get her moved."

"Any idea how long she's been dead?" He asks, moving to look around the bedroom, taking mental note of the same thing as he did in the other room. Devoid of anything of personal connection before moving to the closet.

"Based of body temp and lividity, a day, maybe two."

He looks at the closet, noticing almost nothing of color. Blacks, whites, dark navy blues, no dresses, no skirts. "No family?" He asks, turning around to address anyone who can answer his suspicion.

"Doesn't look like it." Ryan says, just walking into the room. "That was the land lord. He found the body when he noticed the door was open. He said Sarah would never leave the door open. Said she was very quiet, always paid her rent on time. He said she always looked scared. Like she was always looking over her shoulder."

Castle, getting a hunch, goes back to the door to the apartment, pushing it back. "She had this installed herself." He points to the three point dead bolt on the door. "She probably has a menial job. She won't have many friends, if any. She didn't wear much make up. She tried to make herself forgetful." Castle walks over to her keys, sitting on the ground with a yellow marker next to it. "She was ambushed. The killer followed her here," He starts, standing up and going to the door, "probably waited in the stairwell for her to come to the door. He came up from behind her, grabbed her and forced her inside." Castle goes back to her keys, touching the nozzle of the pepper spray key chain with his index finger after slipping a blue rubber glove on. "She didn't get a chance to use this."

"You think she would have?" Ryan asks him.

"Pepper spray key chains are made big so it's automatically the thing you hold onto when you're holding your keys. She would have had them out. He probably had the sedative waiting when he grabbed her." Castle stands back up, taking another scan of the apartment.

"So, I have uniforms canvassing the area, seeing if anyone knew her." Espo says, coming out of the bedroom.

"She suffers from an advanced case of SAD." Castle says, taking a step forward to present his preliminary profile on the victim.

"What's that?" Ryan asks.

"It stands for social anxiety disorder." A voice comes from behind them. Castle turns around and feels his chest tighten. "It basically means she was always on the look out for someone out to get her."

"Uh..." Castle starts, looking at the woman in the doorway, hands tucked into a long blue coat, her expression serious. He looks away when she meets his eyes and turns back to Ryan and Esposito, who are both wide eyed. "People will describe her as distrusting, anti social, always ate alone at lunch. Our killer will be cocky, arrogant, feels he's above everyone else but won't openly admit to it. There won't be any signs of sexual assault because that's not what this is about. This was about fear."

"How do you know this wasn't rape? All the signs are there." Ryan says, a confused squint in his eyes.

"Because our killer is a form of sexual sadist."

"Don't sexual sadists usually stab their victims?" He hears Beckett ask him. "I mean, don't sexual sadists use killing as a substitute for sex?" She asks, taking a step forward to stand next to him. He hardens his lungs to even his breathing, blinks his eyes for a long second to keep himself in line.

"He probably suffocated her more than once, bringing her to the point of death, then bringing her back. He gets off on having complete control over his victims."

"Victims?" Esposito says, giving him an excuse to look away from her still serious expression. "You think he's done this before?"

"It's too neat to be his first time." Castle says, looking at no one other than Esposito before he turns and walks out.

* * *

She's trying to make it all about the work. She asked for reinstatement to get at least that part of her life back. To do something she's familiar with, be some place where she's comfortable. She didn't want it to be a big deal that she returned to the twelfth as just a beat homicide detective. She thought that at least the boys would let him know that she was going to be back. But based on his reaction to her injecting herself into their conversation, he had no idea.

She knows that he probably thinks this is her way of weaseling back into his life, and in the deepest part of her intentions, maybe it is.

She looks back to Ryan and Espo after watching him walk out, "You didn't tell him I was coming back?"

"I wanted him to do his thing first." Espo says. "If I had told him that... you..." he stutters, clearly throwing out two or three different titles, "were coming back, I wouldn't have gotten anything out of him. You talk to the neighbors?"

Kate sighs and pulls out her note pad. "Yeah, they all basically said the same thing; quiet, no family, no boyfriend. Half the people I talked to didn't even know she existed until this morning."

"Alright. CSI's wrapping up here. Why don't we head back, see if we can't track down where she worked. Wait for the canvass to get back. I'll call the captain and tell him to reach out to the FBI, see if they have any serial killers on file matching this MO."

The three disperse, with Kate taking a quick step out into the hall way to look for Castle. She sighs, cursing herself when she feels disappointment in it. She knows how much Alexis means to Castle. She wants to respect her and try to keep her distance. But if she's being honest with herself, listening to him read off his profile made her remember the brilliant mind inside of that lovable man-child. She takes a deep breath, and starts down the hall way toward the elevators. She comes around the corner and stops when she finds him waiting in the middle of the floor, hands loosely hanging out of his pockets and a tight knot in his brow.

She feels herself shrink and comes to stand next to him, wanting to speak, but deciding not to, and not knowing what she would say, or where the courage to do so would come from.

"You got reinstated?" He asks her.

She pushes the lump in her throat to the side and nods, keeping her eyes forward. "Yep."

"Trying to get your old life back?" He asks her, seeing him turn to look at her.

She turns to him, hoping he can read the soft assurance she's trying to convey. "Yes."

* * *

The elevator doors slide open and she goes ahead of him, not looking back to see if he's following her.

He's angry, but keeping it in check for the sake of the victim. The faster they can get this guy, the better. He knows that she probably just wants to get some normalcy back into her life, if nothing else. His dream, or more accurately his memory of their first time together is still fresh in his mind. He's been thinking of everything he can to shake it away. Best thing he can do is swallow all his emotions, keep his eyes straight, and keep focused on what needs to be done.

"Just got off the phone with the BAU at Quantico. They said they'll looking into it victimology and get back to us."

"So, just get a hit on employment records. She works at a factory that makes colored thread. Ryan and I are headed down there now." Espo says, coming out of the tech room.

"You're looking for a white male, mid to late twenties, between five nine and six feet, probably not very built."

Ryan finishes writing and slides his notepad into his jacket pocket before lightly tapping Esposito and moving toward the elevator. "Castle, you want to head back to the crime scene, see if we missed anything. CSI's should be cleared out of there by now, see if you can't... pick up on anything else."

He nods, picks up the victim report and turns toward the elevator.

* * *

She watches as Castle turns toward the elevators, and decides to go into the tech room and canvass traffic cam footage. She makes her way toward the tech room when she's stopped by Esposito. "You want to go with him?" He says, giving her an order.

"Espo, I don't think that he-"

"Listen," He says, turning toward her. "the captains on my ass about this one. He's pissed enough about having to call the FBI. If Castles right, and this is a serial killer and we get another body, he'll have to call them in. So if there's a chance that you and Castle can do that whole... shared mind thing," He says, waving the file in his hand around in a circle in the air, "then I'm not gonna stick you in there looking at traffic cam footage."

"But Javi..." She says softly.

"Beckett, Ryan and I want our boy back. You have no idea how depressing it is here now. And the only way to get our boy back, is for mommy and daddy to stop fighting and get back to normal." She hopes that he's kidding. Esposito and Ryan always did treat Castle like their own. "Now get going." He says, waving the file in his hands toward the elevator and smiling.

Kate sees the elevator doors start to close, Castle the only one inside. She feels like she's being pushed from all sides. Alexis doesn't want her here. Castle she's sure feels the same way. Javier says both him and Ryan want her here to get the old Castle back. But in that moment, looking at Castle in the elevator, his eyes just having met hers, halted a good ten feet away from the elevator doors, all she wants is for him to be happy.

She's taken aback when she sees him looking down to the floor, holding the elevator with his arm.

* * *

 **A/N: So, the dream in the beginning of the chapter got me to thinking, and I realized I forgot to ask. If there are any thoughts of wanting the rating to raise a step, then I'll try to work something into the story. If you want me to raise the rating, let me know. I always felt that M rated stories always got more attention anyway because of the reason their rated M. If you want me to take a crack at it, let me know!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I binge watched eight seasons of Criminal Minds on Netflix a while back. I always thought Castle would make a good profiler since 3XK first showed up. Anyway, a lot of people have been telling me that Kate needs to start owning up to her mistakes, and I was going to tell you that I was working on it. I have a clear idea now of how I want this story to develop, but I do take in and consider all your advice. Some of it's really helpful, scathing reviews of how in the wrong Kate is and how much of a doormat Castle is don't help me at all, and kind of piss me off.**

 **(Also, please let me know if you're talking about the show or my story when you say things like you hating the story line and/or the characters. It's getting kind of confusing.)**

* * *

She stops the car at the curb of the apartment building of the crime scene, climbs out, but by the time she is on her feet, Castle is already making his way inside. She lets out a deep breath and closes the car door. Not a word has been spoken between them since she told him in an underlying tone that she wanted her old life back. The silence was thick with tension at first, but she zoned out while driving them back here the best she could.

She knows Esposito has good intentions, probably, by sending them back here together, whether they be for the case or for them. But Castle hasn't even made eye contact with her since she first appeared on the crime scene this morning. She wants to talk to him about everything, with no pressure. A calm conversation about where they're at and what they need to do. But every time she runs the conversation through her head, it always ends bad.

The elevator ride up to the third floor, just like the drive here, is made in silence. Castle steps out first and quickly makes his way to the door at the end of the hall way. He stops before he opens the door and turns to look behind him. "What is it?" She asks, not thinking about the mood between them right now, but genuinely curious as to what he's doing.

"Get out your keys." He says while taking a step back. She doesn't want to know what asking him why will do, so she simply pulls her keys out and holds them in her hand. "Stand there." He says, pointing to the floor right in front of the door and turning around, opening the door to the stairwell just across the hall from the door she's standing in front of.

"Castle, what are you doing?" She asks, letting her keys fall down to her side and turning around to face him.

"Reenacting the crime." He says and steps into the stair well. "Turn around and jingle your keys." Castle is quick to close the door. She lets out the breath she was holding in and turns around, shaking her keys for a few seconds and pausing. With Castle not making a move to come back out, she shakes them again. When she does that, she hears the door open. She turns around and sees he's cracked the door an inch. "Do it again." She turns back around and shakes her keys a third time. A second later, the door opens fully. "He couldn't have heard her coming with this door closed. He waited for her to come home here, waited to hear her unlock her door, and jumped her."

"You sure the door wasn't closed? With SAD, Sarah would have been suspicious of that door being open." Castle steps back into the hall way closing the door in front of him. After a moment, the door whips open, she jumps, and sees Castle miming holding a knife.

"She would have heard the door open-"

"And would have had a chance to pepper spray him."

"Exactly." He says and moves past her, opening the door to the apartment.

Kate moves to the left, slowly looking in the draws of the table beside the door, canvassing the apartment for anything out of place. She hears Castle opening draws in the table on the adjacent wall, hearing a bottle clink when he opens a second drawer, which draws her attention. She sees him pull out an empty beer bottle, looking over it for a few seconds. He looks back at the door and then to the bottle in his hands. "She kept empty beer bottles in her drawers?"

Castle doesn't say a word. Instead, pushes the door closed a foot and places the bottle upright on the door knob inside, then moving to the other side and turning the handle back and forth. The bottle falls to the ground with a loud shatter. "She's a Mel Gibson fan." He says, looking back to her with pursed lips. Kate shakes her head slightly. "Mel Gibson used that trick in Conspiracy Theory. You put a beer bottle upright on the knob inside, and if someone tries to get in, the bottle shatters."

Kate fights the smile she feels teasing the edges of her mouth and goes back to going over the apartment. "Something must have happened to her to cause this. A childhood trauma or... witnessing a murder or something."

"It's possible." She hears him say, briefly looking over to him, seeing him flip through what looks like a date book.

She knows this is going to take a while. They could be here for an hour until they find something useful. "So, uh..." She starts, her off handed tone making it too late to through out something obvious about the crime scene, "I was kind of hoping that we'd have a chance to talk." She says, looking over her shoulder to him. His back is still toward her and he just closed the book he was flipping through and went to the small waste basket on the floor. "Later on, if... you wanted." She continues awkwardly when he doesn't respond.

He stands back up and sighs. "Her land lord said that she moved here from Providence and paid an extra months rent up front if he skipped the background check."

Curious that the victim wanted the background check skipped and despite her better judgement telling her that he obviously doesn't want to get into it right now. "Look, Castle, I get it." She says, taking another slow step to the side, trying to make it looks like she is at least half focused on the task at hand. "There's a lot to work through."

"She was running from something. And she was scared of it coming back. There's nothing here that has any personal connection. This apartment has no memories in it."

"Castle, I understand if you don't want to talk about it right now, but-"

"The killer probably used a CPR mouth guard to resuscitate her and strangle her again."

She turns to face him while he still faces away from her. "Rick, can we at least talk about this?"

"No!" He snaps, turning around quickly. "No, we can't talk about it, because I honestly have no idea what I'm suppose to say."

Kate is silenced, everything she had prepared in her head to say that would get them in a better place left to fall away.

"Fine, you want to talk about it?" He says quickly, shrugging his shoulders. "You left me, Kate. Plain and simple. I know you have your reasons, and I know I should care about them. But I don't. The fact is is that there was something that you felt was more important than our marriage. Yes, I moved out of the loft because everything in there is a reminder of you, and it was too damn painful. Yes, I wish we could just forget about everything else and we could just go back to the way it was. I wish I had it in my to just forgive you, Kate. But I can't. Yes, I do want you back because I do still love you, and I wish that it didn't take you being brought to the brink of death for you to realize that. I wish you had a little more faith in what we had, just like I wished that you'd finally take your foot out of the door when we got married. I wish that I could just take you back. But the truth is, Kate... the truth is I don't trust you not to hurt me again."

She chokes on every rebuttal when he breaks eye contact, his eyes rimmed with red and quickly walks out the door. "Rick..." She calls for him, her voice thick with emotion.

* * *

He draws in a deep breath in through his nose, holding it a couple seconds before letting it out through his mouth and repeats it as the elevator rides up to the bull pen.

He hopes Ryan and Esposito are back from the victims work. He's been repeating everything about the case he can remember in his head, reciting new theory about what she was running from. He can't let himself think about it. He tried not to get into it. But she just had to push him on it. He didn't want to talk then, he didn't want to talk about it sometime later. He just wanted things to go back to normal.

The doors slide open and he shoves off the wall and heads to the bullpen, where Ryan is sitting against Espo's desk. "Anything from the victim's work?"

"No one stood out. But Sarah, didn't go by Sarah at work. She gave them a fake name." Ryan starts, spinning around in his chair.

"What name?"

"Barbara Gordon."

"You've got to be kidding me." Castle says with a light chuckle, coming to stand next to them.

"Will you guys just tell me!" Esposito says, shoving off Ryan's desk.

"Barbara Gordon is the secret identity of Batgirl." Castle says, fending off a smile.

"But," Ryan starts, standing up and moving to the murder board, "her real name is Caitlyn Moss. Previous address lists her a resident of Providence, Rhode Island. We called her last employer and they said that one day, she gave notice and emptied her locker. Her ex boyfriend is flying down to talk to us. He sounded devastated when we told him Caitlyn was dead."

"You get word from the FBI?"

"Yeah, they told us that they didn't have anything on file that matches this MO, but they can't give us a more accurate profile than the one you gave us until we get another body."

"Let's not let it come to that." Esposito says, turning around and sitting down at his desk.

Castle sighs, turning back to stare at the murder board, wasting no time in drowning himself in case work.

* * *

"He's right, Lanie." Kate says, turning the tissue over in her hands.

Lanie stays quiet and listens.

"You know, if Maddox hadn't of thrown me off that roof, I don't think I would have gone to see him that night." She recalls, remembering what it felt like hanging by her fingertips and hearing him call out to her, but not be there. "But he was right about everything." She says on a sniffle and a dab under nose. "Every relationship I've been in before, I've always kept one foot out the door. But when Castle and I started dating, I thought that it was different. Then I got that offer from the Attorney General's office, and..." She trails off.

"What'd he say?" Lanie finally coaxes.

"That he doesn't trust me..." She pauses as a thick wave of emotion shoots up her system, "not to hurt him again. I didn't leave because of him. I didn't mean to hurt him."

"But you did, Kate." Lanie softly argues. "And I think it's time you start owning up to that."

* * *

He comes into the living room, pouring himself a small shot of scotch. He knows they're going to get another body soon. The trails gone cold until the victims ex boyfriend comes in tomorrow morning. He downs the scotch, hating himself for thinking that it would help to catch the killer if he were to strike again. He was right about the CPR mouth guard. He resuscitated her multiple times before he couldn't do it anymore. He gets off on having complete control over his victim.

He's startled out of his thoughts on the case by a soft buy fast knock on the door. He sets the glass down and moves across his apartment to answer it and pulls open the door. His chest tightens, impatience winning over in the tight battle his emotions are having. "Beckett, what do you want?"

Her head remains craned for a second before he sees her take a quick breath and meet his eyes. "Castle, I just wanted to..." She stutters before letting her words fall.

"If your here to defend herself against me, Kate, I don't-"

"No, Castle," She says, raising her hand to stop him. "That's not why..." She says, her voice soiled. She lifts her head again and meets his eyes again, her lashes littered with unshed tears. "Rick, you were right." Castle feels his stomach tighten. "About everything." She says, nodding her head. "If I could go back, I never would have left you. I'm not going to stand here and defend myself to you." She stops and quickly swipes her cheek with the bottom of her sleeve. "It..." She sucks in a shuddering breath, "breaks my heart that you don't trust me, Castle, and I know that it won't mean much, but," she pauses and looks up to him again, the track of a tear just running down her other cheek, "I am truly sorry... for everything I've done to you."

She looks back down to the floor and turns, heading down the hall without another word.

He shuts the door, wondering if he should have stopped her.


	7. Chapter 7

It came down to the last few seconds, whether he was right not to go after her or not. Shutting the door, trying not to take action after her apology, which was too heartfelt and sincere not to strike a chord with him, was hard. He's been up all night, sitting on his couch and thinking. Running it over in his head over and over again, every word she said, the inflection she used, the audible tremble in her voice, the tears she wasn't even trying not to let overflow, and most of all, how much he had to resist to pull her in and kiss her. It's been a deep, dull nagging feeling until last night. Last night he had to physically stop himself.

He shouldn't be depriving himself of sleep, especially right now. He needs to stay focused on the case. But he's run everything about the case through his head a dozen times. He already told Espo to check reports of prostitutes and junkies. Unsubs like this one usually start with high risk victims, develop and perfect their MO then move on to low risk victims. He's hoping that it's turned something up, and that something won't be another murder victim.

He shoves off the wall of the elevator and takes a heavy step toward the bullpen. He's tired, hasn't had any coffee, mentally exhausted from thinking about everything being thrown at him. She used to make it easier.

His eyes feel heavy and with every time he feels them succumb to the weight, he regrets making the conscious decision to stay up and work through this. Fruitlessly. "Hey." He hears her greet him, her tone low, her voice small.

He opens his eyes as much he can and sees her standing in front of him, holding two pale white cups. He looks back up to her and sees her flash him a soft smile.

"I just thought that it was time I start paying you back on all the coffee I owe you." She says, slowly handing him the cup in her left hand. He feels his heart grow inside his chest and takes it from her, not too tired to notice the wedding band adorning her ring finger.

"Thanks." He says, breaking eye contact in favor of the floor.

There's a pause between them when he turns to face into the bullpen and he feels her step up next to him. "I figured I'd get a head start." She starts, gaining a look, seeing her look back to him with the gentle tenderness he remembers. "Only nine hundred ninety-nine more to go." She jokes, lifting her cup up to her lips.

He's too tired to hide his smirk, but also too tired to smile fully or continue her joke like he would have two years ago.

"So, Caitlyn's ex boyfriend is due here any minute. Espo wants Ryan and I to interview him while you and him go check out a lead on a string of sex workers that fit the MO you gave."

He simply nods and lifts the cup she handed him up to his lips.

"You okay?" She asks him, her inflection uplifting, normal even.

"Just didn't get much sleep last night." He answers, trying to harden himself again so's to not have an emotional outbreak in the middle of the bullpen. He looks up again and sees Espo come out of the tech room, his phone in one hand and a file in the other.

"Hey Castle. The Ninth sent over everything they could find that matches what we're looking for. There's over fifty open cases of prostitutes being killed. This year alone."

"High risk victims. Less likely to get reported missing, easily isolated. Perfect practice for a serial killer." Castle says, looking in no particular direction, anywhere but her because he can feel her looking at him. "You sure you don't need me here to talk to the victims ex?"

"No, they got it. Besides, he's got a solid alibi for the murder. And come on, I thought you'd be psyched to talk to prostitutes." Espo says with a smile, slapping him in the chest with the file in his hand. "Come on, bro." He says and moves around him toward the elevator.

He audibly sighs and closes his eyes. "Not excited?" Beckett asks him.

He looks over to her and sees the same gentle smile on her face. "About what? Talking to prostitutes all morning? You'd be surprised how quickly it looses it's appeal. And besides," He says, turning around and making his way toward the elevator, but not before turning around to face her again, walking backward, "I'm married."

He gets to the elevator, watching Beckett walk through the bullpen, smiling the smile where she's trying to hide how adorably dorky she thinks she looks when she smiles too wide by biting her lower lip.

"You want to tell me what's really going on here?" Castle asks.

"Do you?" Espo retorts, looking over to him from his phone. Castle sends him a blank look by turning his heavy head against the wall of the elevator. Espo looks back down to his phone, handing Castle the file. "Three victims, all found in different pay-by-hour motel rooms. First victim was strangled once, no sign of resuscitation. Second victim was strangled, but she had a broken chest bone."

"So he _tried_ to resuscitate her and didn't succeed." Castle says, looking over the case photos of the victims. "The first two weren't tied down."

"Third one was. She was found zip-tied to the bed. Lanie says that based on the ligature marks on our victims wrists, those could be our killers tool."

Castle looks over the files again, following Espo to his car. "First two victims were killed two weeks apart, then ten days apart. Last victim was killed a week ago."

"He's been escalating." Espo says, stopping at the driver side door.

"And he's due to kill again."

* * *

"Mr. Tipton, we appreciate you flying all the way down here to talk to us." Beckett starts, sitting down across from the small figured man, dark short hair and glasses.

"Is Cait really dead?" He asks her, leaning forward, his eyes already starting to leak.

Beckett pauses, always hating this part and never letting herself get used to it, "I'm afraid so."

"Mr. Tipton, can you describe the circumstances of Caitlyn leaving?" Ryan asks him.

"Please, call me Geoff." He says, lifting his hand with a watery smile. "We had just got engaged. We met in graduate school. We dated for a couple years until we were ready. I proposed and... at first, everything was great. Cait was so excited about planning the wedding. Then one day I came home and she had a bag packed. All she said was that there was some stuff she needed to take care of... then she left and I never saw her again."

Kate suppresses the beat her heart just skipped.

"I mean, we were getting married. I wanted her to be my wife. What could possibly be more important than that?"

"U-uh..." Kate stutters, "Did anything ever happen to her... as a child. She ever see something she ever tell you about?" Kate asks quickly, wanting to steer the conversation toward something other than where it was headed.

Geoff cranes his head and nods. "She told me once she saw her neighbor kill someone in his home. She said that she was home from school one day, alone, and she saw him stab his wife with a kitchen knife. She said that he was a family friend too, that he used to baby sit her. Ever since then, she said that she had a hard time trusting people."

"Did she ever talk to anybody about her social anxiety disorder?" Kate asks him.

"No, she always said she was too smart for therapy."

"Is it possible that the person she saw as a child came for her?" Ryan asks him.

"No. He got charged with murder, he's serving twenty to life."

"Can you give us his name?"

* * *

"So," Esposito starts, on their way back from a pointless two hour conversation with more prostitutes than he ever wanted to talk to, "Beckett's back for two days and she's already got you joking around again?"

"It's not like that." Castle says, keeping his eyes out the window.

"Castle, you know who you're talking to?" Espo asks him, looking over to him, stuck in traffic after all. "For two years, you've put everything you've got into a job that you have no obligation to do. Hell, we even let you carry a gun. Two years ago you would have started cracking jokes left and right. Not because you were an ass, but because it made the job easier for _her_. Not a lot of people would have gone through what you have for that woman, but you did it because you love her."

"Yes, I love her! So much it scares me, but what's that worth if she just keeps leaving?" He snaps, tired of being told why he should just forgive her.

"Castle, you remember when you left for the summer, back when you two first started working together?" Castle doesn't answer. "You remember what happened when you came back?"

"She arrested me, accused of murder, _you_ almost shot me, and that was different!" He argues, finally looking over to him with a deadpan stare.

"Okay, first of all, that was Ryan, and you left for three months with your ex wife. But she kept you on as her partner. You know why?" He knows Espo isn't going to wait for an answer. "Because you stuck around and proved to her that you belonged there!"

"Is there a point to all this?"

"That you would have to be stupid to let the love of your life walk out the door again."

"What, so I should just forget that she left me for two years?"

"No, but you should at least give her a chance to earn that trust back. If nothing else, she deserves that." Castle sighs, turning to look back out the window, sensing the conversation is over, when he hears Esposito's phone ring. "Esposito." He hears Espo sigh a heavy sigh, "Damn it, alright, have Beckett and Ryan meet us there."

"What is it?"

"We just got another body." Espo says and takes the first right.

* * *

Kate follows Ryan down the third story hall way of the apartment building, seeing Castle looking over the front room. He doesn't notice her before she goes into the bedroom, where Lanie is looking over the body.

"What've we got?" She asks Lanie.

"Same age as our last victim, same COD, same MO. Everything fits."

Kate looks over to Castle, who just walked into the room, seeing his eyes onto the victim, posed on the bed. He has the look in his eyes that tells her he knows something. "What is it?"

He looks over to her after a moment, "I'm ready to give you a profile."

An hour later, the twelfth precincts bullpen is packed with all the uniform officers that operate out of here. Her, Esposito, and Ryan are in the front with her leaning back against what used to be her old desk, while Castle is standing next to Captain Griffin, facing everybody.

"We're looking for a while male that ages from his late twenties to early thirties. He's a sadists that gets off on having control and dominance over his victims. He uses blitz attacks from behind, using a quick acting sedative used in mental institutions and ERs, so he lacks the confidence and the size necessary for a straight kidnapping. He probably has a menial job that doesn't involve physical labor. He feels emasculated and inferior in his daily life, so he seeks this out in his victims. Look for domestic disturbance calls that involve an abusive wife. He will have anti-social tendencies but will sometimes have outbursts of anger, sometimes bordering on violent. His co-workers will not be at all surprised to find out that he's capable of something like this. We know he has a type, in this case, petite brunette woman. He's probably using his victims as a surrogate for the real center of his rage. His first victim was a prostitute that he probably didn't intend to kill. He killed two more developing his MO, then moved on to low risk victims. The time between each murder has been closing, meaning that he's getting less and less satisfaction from each kill. He is already starting to devolve and will turn into a spree killer if we don't catch him."

Castle steps back and Kate should be paying attention to what Griffin is about to say, but all she can think of is how her husband looks like he's about to collapse.

"And as with every active investigation, the official comment being made by the twelfth precinct is 'no comment.' If the media gets a hold of this, they'll give him a name. And I don't need to remind any of you, especially Mr. Castle," Kate's eyes go to him again and she sees him staring at the ground, "and Detective Beckett," then sees him look up to her, "about the scars left on this precinct and everybody here by Jerry Tyson once he went from Jerry Tyson to 3XK. This guys a murderer, not a campfire story. You've all been your assignment, if you have any questions about the profile you just heard, please direct them to either myself or Mr. Castle." Captain Griffin starts walking back toward his office, and Castle steps forward again.

"Thank you." Everybody in the bullpen disperses and Kate waits a moment before she stands up and makes her way the few feet to stand in front of him, crossing her arms.

"Our killer might work at a hospital, would give him access to sedatives."

"If he does, it wouldn't be as a medical professional. It would be as a janitor, maintenance crew, something like that." He replies, not making eye contact.

Kate nods, "Well look, you should go home, get some rest."

"No, Beckett, I'm-"

"Castle, you look like you're about to collapse." She says softly, conveying her very honest concern for him. She steps to her side, putting herself in his eye line and craning her neck to get him to look at her, which he does. "Uniforms are canvassing, the lab results from the last crime scene won't be in for a few hours, and you were up all night because of me." She pauses, trying to tell him silently that she know whats going on with him and that she's here. "I'll call you if we get anything, okay?" She says, putting her hand on his arm.

Castle's shoulders deflate with acceptance and he nods. "Thanks."

She smiles, runs her thumb against his arm one last time before removing it and letting him walk past her.

"You trust his profile, Detective?" She hears a voice behind her.

She turns and sees Captain Griffin standing behind her with his hands in his pockets. She turns to face him fully and nods. "I do, Sir. When we first pegged Tyson as 3XK, he profiled that he was using his victims as surrogates for his abusive foster mother. And if there's one thing I've learned to trust, it's his instincts. So, yes, Captain, I do trust his profile, and have no doubt in my mind that it will lead to us bringing this killer to justice."

Captain Griffin pauses for a long moment before nodding. "That'll be all, Detective."

* * *

 **A/N: I hope I'm not boring you guys with case work. I'm trying to keep it about Castle and Beckett as much as I can, and yes, this case is a part of that and will be entwined with them working things out.**

 **Side note: A lot of people are saying that they don't follow the show anymore. Personally, I think they could have ended it very well last season. Just shown a one or two minute epilogue about Beckett being a Senator, living in New York with Castle and their three kids, like was said in season six.  
**

 **Update: to any guest reviewer who is posting flaming reviews about Beckett, saying that she should kill herself, ect. I advise you to first, go sodomize yourself with a broken broom handle, and second, stop reading this story if you're not enjoying the characters or the plot, and are only using this story (and any other story) as an outlet for your misdirected aggression that you have about your own life, because you've probably been hurt by someone and had your trust betrayed in what you feel is the same way as Castle, and you've been unable to move on from it. Please, if you're not going to post anything positive or constructive, either stop reviewing as a guest so I can explain to you how much you suck, or stop reviewing and leave everyone who is enjoying this story the hell alone.**

 **From this point on, I will be screening guest reviews and deleting those I find blatantly offensive. Like the one I just got.**


	8. Chapter 8

"Are you sure?" He asks her.

Her eyes glisten in the ambient light, sees a smile cur onto her lips while he feels her hand touch his jaw. "Absolutely."

He leans back down and kisses her, slowly but with purpose. Feels the hand on his jaw weave into his hair and another slide up his back as he leans down and presses against her, making her teeth bite down softly into his lip. He wishes he could watch her body move under his and kiss her at the same time, and he can't decide which he wants to do more. Her lips gaining force and territory with each in sync motion they make against his. He wants to take it further, go further, tread territory that he hasn't yet, but he's enjoying just kissing her and feeling her hands mapping him out.

He gasps when he feels her leg tighten around his.

* * *

He feels his eyes open at that moment. It takes him a long moment for his mind to return to reality and another one for the disappointment that it was merely a dream to pass.

It's not that it's a dream, but that it's a memory. Before that night, when he would have a dream about the two of them, he couldn't imagine what it felt like. The only memory he had to go on was a kiss that didn't last long enough to base a whole dream off of. If it was a dream, he could just tell himself that it wouldn't be like that. But that night meant so much to him. Not just because it was their first time, or that it was the best first time he's ever had, but because of what he meant to her that night.

He sits up from the couch and looks at the clock on the wall, seeing he's gotten four hours of sleep. He stops thinking about it, substituting it for what could be done for the case. He stands up and makes his way into the bathroom just off the hallway to the kitchen, thinking that there has to be a point of overlap in the victims.

After coming out, he hears his phone ringing on the coffee table. "Castle."

 _"Hey, it's me."_ Beckett says over the phone.

"Hey." He says, not remembering putting a lift in his voice, as if everything was normal between them.

 _"I hope I didn't wake you, but Espo wants us to go back to the last crime scene and see if there's anything that links our last victim to Caitlyn. He's having Ryan look over financial records while he goes to her employer."_

"Alright, I'll meet you there."

 _"Bye."_

He hangs up and lets out a heavy sigh. After slipping his phone back into his pocket, changing out of a wrinkled shirt and splashing some cold water on his face, he heads out the door and makes the twenty minute cab drive to the last victims crime scene, where she's already waiting for him by her car. She smiles softly when she sees him and starts toward the door to the apartment building with him.

"Has she made any hospital visits recently?" Castle asks her as they both walk down the hall way.

"Ryan said there was nothing in her phone records, but he's checking the local ERs."

They come to the door of the victim, but Castle stops and turns to the door across the hall. His attention is drawn to the knob. Seeing more scratches around the keyhole than normal, he tries the knob and pushes the door open to an empty apartment. "He waited in here." Castle says while Beckett pulls down the crime scene tape.

"He must have jimmied the lock. These apartments don't look too secure."

Castle follows her inside and goes to the desk on the opposite wall. "What was the victims name?"

"Nicole Myers, she was a grad student NYU, a year away from getting her degree. Everyone that knew her said that she was your average grad student. I mean, everything here says your average college student." She's right. He takes a quick look around, framed pictures of her and her friends when they were young. Some of her and her older brother, her high school graduation picture, souvenirs of vacations abroad.

"The killer must be choosing his victims based on appearance alone. Victimology between Nicole and Caitlyn couldn't be more different." Castle says, starting to go through the drawers of the desk.

"Well, you did say that he's using his victims as surrogates for someone. Who do you think it is?"

"Ex girlfriend, maybe. The profile suggests he most likely can't maintain a job, much less a relationship. He would be a loner."

The next few minutes go by in silence while Castle goes through old papers and files in the victims desk while Beckett goes over the rest of the one bedroom apartment. "So, there's nothing here that connects her to our first victim." Beckett says, coming out of the bedroom.

"Have Ryan look into her social media. Maybe she posted about something recently."

Beckett takes out her phone and calls Ryan while Castle takes one last look around the apartment. "Ryan said that he'll look into it, but nothing in her financial or phone records stood out." Castle nods and starts past her and out of the apartment. "Castle, wait." He stops, turns and looks to her with a raised brow. "Listen, if I crossed a line by coming over last night-"

"No, you... you didn't." He stops her, wanting to keep the conversation she just started light. After not coming up with anything to say, he looks back down to the floor.

"Rick." She says, gaining his immediate attention. She's stepped forward and has a soft arch in her brow. "What can I do?" Castle starts to ask her, but she keeps going. "I-I mean, I've tried to make it just about the work and keep my distance but Castle, I love you. So I guess I just want to know what it's going to take to get you back."

He lets out a long breath, letting himself be honest. "I don't know." He says softly. "I wish it was easy, I do." He shrugs before taking a pause, letting his eyes fall back down tot the floor. "Do you remember our first night together?" He asks her, still trying to keep the conversation from turning into a fight.

She smiles and looks down, "I don't think I could ever forget."

"That's not what I mean." He says, not talking about it just being the first time they made love. She looks back up to him, her brow straightening. "Your shooter had just gotten away, along with the only lead you had on your mother's case, which was the most important thing in your life." Saying that stung. "Your partner had just quit on you. And you had just quit your job. And you came to me. You came to me and you said that you didn't care that Maddox got away. That you only wanted me. That I was enough for you. I've never had that, Kate. And to know that _I_ was enough for you, that meant everything to me. And I know that it probably sounds selfish, but I want that back."

"Rick, you always were enough for me." She says, closing the few steps that separated them, stopping just a foot away. "That night, it..." She lets the sentence fall and shakes her head. "After Maddox got away and Gates found out what me and Espo had done, I didn't know what I was doing it for anymore. I just kept running your words through my head and I knew what I wanted. And I knew I wasn't going to get it with my badge. And honestly," She says, chuckling under her breath, "you have no idea how nervous I was when I knocked on your door." He can feel himself fighting a smile. "But Castle, whatever I have to do, however much time you need to trust me again... I'm willing to wait as long as it takes, because you're worth it. I want now exactly what I wanted then, Castle. And that's you."

Castle looks down at her hands that found their way onto his stomach, the next though in his head the only thing stopping him from returning her gesture. "Do you know what kills me the most?" He asks her, looking back up to her with a straight brow. "Before he was killed, Bracken told me that it would happen. The son of a bitch who had your mother killed knew you better than I did. I knew he was wrong because I'm your husband, I'm suppose to know you better than anyone. But I feel like you played right into his hands. He's dead and you were still letting him dictate your life."

"No, Castle, it's-"

"It's more complicated than that." He finishes for her. He feels her remove her hands, taking a step away from him. "I wish I could believe that, but you know what? It really isn't. That's what kills me the most. Not that you left me or that you gave up our marriage, but that the same person who framed you for murder and almost killed you knew you better than I did. And after that, it feels like I don't know you at all."

Her eyes won't turn away, but he wishes they would. He can see the hurt and sadness start welling up inside her. Her phone rings and she finally looks away, while he takes a step away, ending whatever moment they were just having. "Beckett." He takes a silent breath, hardening himself again. "Ryan just finished. He says that Nicole went to Lenox Hill for the birth of her nephew three days ago. And Caitlyn went to the same hospital last week for a drug screening at work."

"There's our connection."

"He's looking at employee records now to see who was working on both those days, but he wants us to head down there and start talking to people since you know the profile of who were looking for the best." Castle nods and turns to head out the door. "Rick," Her calling him that always gets him. She only calls him by his first name when she's emotional. He turns around and looks back to her. "Is there nothing I can do to make you trust me again?"

He sighs heavily, deciding to tell her nothing but the truth. "I don't know."

* * *

 **A/N: Just to clarify, I have never, now will I ever or have ever have any desire to go to New York city. I was born in northern California. I don't know the layout of New York, don't know where these hospitals are, and am just pulling random hospital names off of a Wikipedia page. And I realize this chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but I felt that this was a good 'organic' place to end it, if that makes sense. Thanks again for reading.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Small change in the first chapter, near the end. Had to make it to help the continuity of future chapters and story telling. I have a plot line decided, and hopefully, as it reveals itself, you find it believable and enjoyable. Thanks again, and please feel free to let me know what you think.**

 **Again, still screening guest reviews for uselessly negative reviews toward the show and/or the characters portrayed. If you would like to talk to me about my writing ability (or lack thereof as you may see it), please give me a means to tell you that I really don't care other than these author's notes.**

* * *

Sitting in traffic with her used to be pleasurable. Just a few minutes alone with her, talking about seemingly nothing, case work, who would cook dinner that night, who got to have the last innuendo. But now it's just thick silence. He's keeping his gaze out the window but he knows that she's peeking over at him every other moment or two.

If it's honesty, he's having a hard time holding onto his anger. Every look she gives him, apologetic or otherwise, reminds him of what they used to be, of what those looks used to mean to him. The looks that they would get caught up in, that in the right moment would make him feel more connected with her than if she was lying in his arms in their bed. He's been running through why he's still angry, or at least why he should be, for the last three slow moving lights.

If he could give her an answer, he would. Because he wants them back as much, if not more than she does. He briefly scorns himself for thinking that. He can't presume so much and think that he knows exactly what she's feeling and know exactly how much she misses being with him. She's made it clear that she does, and so has he, in so many words.

He hears her let out a long sigh as the car slows to yet another stop on their way to the hospital. He sees her take both hands off the wheel, letting one fall down to her lap and the other rest against her head, her elbow against the door. He doesn't want to be watching her out of the reflection on the window, but doesn't know how to stop either.

"God, is this what it felt like?" She says out of nowhere.

He looks over to her and she has an almost sarcastic smile on her face while she shakes her head. "What do you mean?" He wasn't going to ask, but decided against it while the words were already spilling out.

She lets the other arm fall down to her lap and she looks down. "I guess I never considered what it felt like..." She looks up to him with nor a scowl or a smile, "for you."

He shifts his brow slightly, silently asking her to elaborate. But after too long of a second, "What what felt like?"

She lets out a breath and looks back down to her lap. "Before we started dating, I don't think I ever stopped and thought of what you were going through." He decides to stay silent, still not knowing where she's taking this conversation, but letting her figure it out. "I mean... I knew in the back of my mind that you... that you felt something for me. Then, after I-" She audibly stops and her hand goes to her chest. It's then that he knows what she's talking about.

He didn't want to get into this. Not now. If he could have his way, not ever.

"I was so wrapped up in what happened to me that I... I never stopped and thought of what it was doing to you." She says, about to look over to him, but stops and looks at him out of the corner of her eye. "But here I am." She lets her head fall back to the head rest. "I feel like I just poured my heart out to you and you're the one whose backing away." She almost laughs but lets out nothing more than a short, bitter chuckle.

He wants to say something. But he decides to just let himself acknowledge the fact that either this is a new side that she's showing him or a side that he forgot she had. Either way, he doesn't want her to close up just because he wants to argue with her or because he feels like he should be and has every right to be angry with her right now.

"You know, now I can't imagine how you stuck around so long. I mean, I knew that you felt something for me, even before I got shot, but I guess I just didn't let myself seriously admit it, let alone that I did too. You would show up every day with a cup of coffee and a smile and you never said anything. You loved me, you... wanted to be with me, but I never admitted it to myself until you were gone. And now..." She says with another bitter chuckle, "here we are. I never even stopped to think how much I was hurting you by lying to you."

He silently lets out a long breath, trying to ease the tension he feels in his muscles with little results. "To be honest, I don't even remember what it feels like." He says as he's thinking it. He looks back over to her and she has a surprised lift in her brow, probably from him turning this into a two sided conversation. "Because I didn't think it mattered when I finally had you."

She purses her lips inward, fighting a smile that she probably feels she shouldn't be smiling right now, but he really is being honest. He forgot all the painful emotions he's felt over the years, not being with her but wanting more than anything to be, the instant he closed his door with her back. He doesn't want it to, a large portion of him wants to stay angry at her, but he feels it dissipate when she meets his eyes. The brief weightlessness he feels in his shoulders is followed by a soft spark in his chest, going up to his lungs with every heartbeat. This is usually the part where he would pull her in and kiss her because either she told him to or she started to the exact moment he did.

But instead, they both jump when they hear a horn honk behind them.

After stepping on the gas to catch up with traffic and another fifteen minutes of silence, they arrive at the hospital. They both step up, Beckett looking down at her phone. "So, there's too many names to give us a lead."

He lets out a long sigh as she starts around the front of the car. "I hate hospitals." He says as he starts following her inside. "Have Ryan look into complaints filed by patients about janitors, maintenance crews, so forth. We should talk to the person in charge of custodial staff." Castle says falling into step with her just as the reach the front desk.

"Hi, I'm detective Beckett," She says, flashing her badge, "and this is my partner, Richard Castle. I need to speak to the supervisor in charge of custodial services."

The nurse asks them to hold on for a moment while she calls him and they both meander off a few steps. "You sure he'll know who were looking for?" Beckett asks him.

"The profile suggests that he's a loner but is prone to violent outbursts. My guess is he's had at least a few incidences."

After another few minutes of waiting, an older man in a dark blue button up work shirt walks up. "Terry Isaacs, Can I help you?"

"Yes, we're investigating a string of murders in the area and have reason to believe that one of your staff might be a suspect." Beckett says, briefly flashing her badge.

His brow pushes together and he crosses his arms. "One of my guys, really?"

"Does anyone on your staff have a short tempter?" Castle asks him. "Maybe quiet, gets written up a lot, gets angry when you get on him about his work?"

Terry cranes his head forward, nodding it slowly. "Greg Mathis."

Beckett opens the folder under her arm, writing the name down. "Greg Mathis?"

"Eh, he was always a bit of a loner. Small guy, kind of scrawny, wouldn't even notice him if you weren't looking. Would get frustrated with jobs, sometimes scare patients. I put him on probation about a month ago, moved him to the third shift, but he had it out with a guy, got physical, had to let him go."

"And when was this?" She asks him.

"Just a few days ago."

'Thank you, and if you see him, or can think of anything else, please call." She says, handing him a card. They turn around and Beckett gets on her phone, "Yeah, Ryan, I got a name. Greg Mathis. He got fired a few days ago. Castle says he possibly fits the profile. Alright, text me the address." Beckett slips her phone back into her coat pocket and gives him a look he recognizes. "Ryan says that Greg just got a job with a general contractor at a work site, he just sent me an address."

They both get back into her car and quickly start toward the address that Ryan sent them, and Castle quickly gets his phone back out, speed dialing Ryan and putting it on speaker. " _Yeah, Ryan_."

"Hey Ryan, is Greg Mathis married?"

 _"Uh... nope."_

"What about a girlfriend?"

 _"Single as far as I can tell."_

"What about his mother? Any history of abuse?"

" _Uh..."_ The keys click in the background as Beckett is giving him a wondering look between driving. _"Mother died in a car accident when he was five, went to live with his aunt. Police were called to his school on a number of occasions when he showed up with bruising on his neck. Social services could never make a case of it though."_

"She still alive?"

 _"No, looks like she died of a heart attack about a month ago."_

"There's the trigger. Thanks, Ryan." Castle hangs up his phone and looks over to Beckett. "His aunt dying without paying for her crimes must have triggered him to start killing. He can't make her pay, so he makes his victims do it for her."

The drive feels anxious, going as fast as they can in mid day traffic. He's thinking about the case, and hopes she's doing the same. Selfishly, not for the victims sake, but for his. Emotional exhaustion is starting to make its realization. He really doesn't know what he should think anymore, what he's suppose to think. He wants her back, but what's stopping her from leaving again? He loves her, but if she's willing to put her chase above their marriage, what else is she willing to put above it? He put everything he had into them, but did she?

"Castle-"

"Beckett," He stops her, knowing the tone. "I can't think about this right now."

She's silent for a minute before he sees her nod, "Okay." She says softly. "But if you don't know anything, just please..." She looks over to him, stopped at a light, and he offers her the same attention, "know that I love you... and I'll wait as long as it takes." Her attention goes back to driving, and in five long minutes of battling emotions, they arrive at the address Ryan sent them. An old ware house building under renovation.

"He's suppose to be on the work site, but... there's no one here." Castle says, looking down the empty alley street.

They head inside the door, entering a large storage room, scaffolding against the walls, peeling paint and menial construction tools laying about. After taking a few steps inside together, Beckett reaches for her gun.

The sound of a hammer being cocked behind them makes her stop. "Don't." A small but gruff voice says. They slowly put their hands up, Castle getting an idea and a worry as he turns around and looks at the short, skinny kid just a few years older than his daughter. Short, almost shaven hair, an unkempt scruff, pointing a gun at them. "You're cops, aren't you?"

"Technically, she's the cop, I'm just a writer." He says.

"Writer?"

"Richard Castle." He says with a bright grin.

"I've heard of you. You're the one who writes those crappy mystery novels." Greg says, pointing the gun at him.

"Well, they sell, so not really worried about it." He says, shrugging his shoulders.

Greg waves his gun off to the side. "Move over there." He orders them, motioning toward a set of large water pipes against the wall to their right. Castle sucks in a deep breath, tripping over a piece of wood laying on the ground, knocking himself against her side. "Keep moving!" He shouts as Castle gets back to his feet and flashes Greg a smile.

"Sorry, this place is a mess." He jokes, kicking the wood he tripped over off to the side.

They're moved over to the water pipes, Beckett looking over to Castle out of the corner of her eye, silently telling him that she's about to do something stupid. But Castle looks back to her, giving her a blank look, shaking his head just enough to know that she shouldn't. She breaks eye contact and turns around to face Greg, whose still holding a gun to them. "Turn around." He says, waving the gun behind them.

They both turn around, and it's a moment before he hears Greg quickly walk up behind them and pull his arms behind him and around a pipe, zip-tying his hands together, holding the clip he swiped from Beckett's gun in place up his sleeve. He holds his breath, hoping that Greg didn't see anything as he hears him go over to Beckett and zip-tie her hands. Castle hears him let out a shuttering breath and quickly walk off. "I have back up on the way, Greg. They'll be here any minute." She says.

Castle looks behind him and see's that Greg stopped. He lets out a frustrated breath and bolts out the door.

* * *

She doesn't have back up coming. She only said that in hopes that he'd give himself up. She starts struggling against the zip-tie tightly binding her hands behind her back. She pulls them against the pipe with no luck, starting to worry that she might have just made a mistake. "Alright, Castle," She says, hoping to save them and get them out of here, "is your pipe loose?" She asks, pushing against hers with her back, hearing is creak a bit. "I think I might be able to break mine free.

"That," He says from his place, tied up a good ten feet away, "sounds like a great plan." She keeps struggling against her pipe and her cuffs to help them out of the situation. "But I think I have a better one." He says next to her.

She's startled at the sound of his voice next to her. She quickly looks over to him, seeing him standing next to her and smiling. "Wha... how did you-"

"I pick pocketed the clip out of your gun before he tied us up and slipped it up my sleeve and when the coast was clear, I slipped it back out." He says, showing her the clip from her gun in his hand.

She looks down to her side, then back up to him. That's what he was doing? "Castle, that was a serious long shot."

"Of course it was." He says, shrugging his shoulders and moving behind her, grabbing onto her cuffs. "But, then again so was me proposing to you." He says, looking at her from the side.

She smiles and looks forward, feeling him trying to pull her cuffs apart. "I don't know, Castle, with the size of that diamond?"

"So size _does_ matter?" He asks from behind her.

"Well, that's never really been a problem for us." She sees him slowly lean forward, leaning forward, giving her a raised brow of surprise. "Just... get me out of these things." She says, fighting back a smile and swallowing the child like giggle she feels rising. "Why didn't you just take my gun and shoot him?"

"Because you're his type. I didn't want take the chance I'd miss. And now that he lost his access to victims, he'll start devolving, taking anyone he can get and not even bothering to subdue his victims, he'll just start killing them. I didn't want to take the chance that he'd start with you."

She feels her chest warm itself. There was a time when she didn't know what exactly this feeling was, or maybe just didn't know what to do with it. Thoughts of him, his wit, the smile he gave her, the banter that took her back to a time when it was just so natural for them, and feeling his hand hold hers, holding her hands still as he gently cuts at the cuff with a pocket knife he just pulled out, all nothing but blatant and clear reminders of why she fell in love with him. When she feels her hands get cut free, she turns around and rubs her wrist.

But when she looks up to him and the soft grin still adorning his handsome face...

It isn't until it's too late when she realizes what she's just done. Grabbing onto his jaw, framing it with her hands, his lips being pulled against his, she feels the life-filled breath she started to breath in halt, along with everything else. She freezes, her lips sitting against his, regretting desire and two years worth of unrequited love get to her. She can't take it back, but for this second, she's wondering what she's doing and how long it will take to forgive herself for stepping over this line.

But it all disappears when she feels him return it. Her heart slowly explodes through her, the soft kiss taking her back to every soft kiss they've shared. Her fingers gently graze down his jaw, her sides tensing at the feeling of his hands just inches away from pulling her in fully. With another slow, amazingly soft motion of his lips, she feels them separate, not fully knowing what exactly just happened.

She opens her eyes and sees his eyes are still closed, his expression blank. His eyes slowly open and she feels her heart skip a bit, a feeling of embarrassment quickly overwhelming the ones she just felt from the first kiss they've had in two years. "Sorry." She says, breaking eye contact and shuffling backward a step.

He shakes his head, offering a nonchalant response, "Don't worry about it."

She lets out as much of the breath she's been holding as she can and steps around him, taking the clip from his hand as he raised it up to her as she passed. As she starts back outside, pulling out her phone and hearing him follow her, she knows. She knows that she shouldn't dig too deep into it, if at all, that it was probably just a fluke, but the fact that he responded offers her one thing, if nothing else.

Maybe there's hope.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: A lot of people are saying that Kate needs to own up to her mistakes, and acknowledge that she made a mistake by leaving, and that I haven't really addressed that, so forth. Rereading the last nine chapters over the night to get a bearing on where I am, I have, but briefly. I touch a lot on that in this chapter, and hopefully it's a chapter a lot of you have been waiting for. Let me know in a review, thanks! ~PossumSoul (Possums don't have souls!)  
**

 ***A lot of people where mad about this chapter. re-reading it, it wasn't really believable. so I made a bit of a change.**

* * *

He really can't help but wonder if this is what she felt after they first kissed, that life time ago in that dank alley as a stupid idea to get past a gunman. Like it shouldn't have happened, but despite it, it did and decided to make the best of it. Like realization struck one second after their lips met that it was a mistake, but the feeling of her lips made it one that he would make again, maybe even gladly.

He recognized the look she had in her eyes right before she kissed him. That sparkle in her eyes that he could sometimes literally feel when their lips would meet. It feels wrong, he knows he should have stopped her, he's seen that look hundreds of times before and enjoys it most when she thinks he's not looking. But in that split second, it took him back to a time when there was no contempt, no anger, when she had no flaws, when to him, she was perfect and wouldn't get her up for the world.

But now that she's taking out her Glock seventeen and slapping the clip back in and taking out her cell phone, reality is slowly starting to set back in. He knows it was just the situation, adrenaline that their suspect got away and relief that they were able to escape with such ease probably working through her system and passing by the right part of her in just the right moment.

They get get into her car and she's already on the phone with Espo to tell them they have their suspect and putting out an all-points. "Espo and Ryan are going to his place and wants us to go back to the precinct and see what we can dig up on him." She says, putting the car in gear and pulling away. Once they're back on the street, for some reason, it feels easier to breath than before. He doesn't feel the tight mixture of anger and frustration in every breath he takes in. It's still sitting in his stomach, dormant for now, but he's letting it go for now to focus on the case. It's where his mind is needed, for both their sakes. "Captain's getting word out to the press. But you think he'll strike again tonight?"

"I don't think so. He's not bold enough to just abduct someone random off the street. He needs some kind of seclusion."

"He won't be headed back home, but he can't have gotten far. He didn't have a car parked by or anything. Unless he caught the subway or a cab or something."

"He won't do anything tonight. It will be harder for him by morning," Castle says, looking at the clock reading fifteen minutes past five, "The news will have his face all over the place. But we need to keep a close watch on any missing person reports that come in."

Kate nods and quickly pulls into traffic, heaviest they've driven through. A few snow flakes start to fall on the windshield and she reaches over and turns on the heat. It isn't until she runs her left hand over the top of the steering wheel and sees the thin wedding band he remembers slipping onto her finger that he realizes that he's watching her out of the corner of his eye.

Chastising himself again, he looks back out the window. He's told her that he's emotionally exhausted from today, having two conversations with her with things he's been meaning to say ever since they started dated. Things that used to be at the forefront of his mind until he had her, then were let go out of a deep seeded desire to be with her. He knows that these draining conversations, however painful they are, are good for them, saying things that need to be said, not what they've done all along and say things they want to say as a means of cleverly skirting whatever issues faced them.

After another fifteen minutes of for once somewhat comfortable silence, they park in front of the precinct and start heading inside. She heads to her desk, Esposito's old desk since he claimed her old one, and starts looking into their suspect, while Castle goes to the murder board and writes his name over to the side. It's quiet, a few background faces, Captain Griffin in his office. He leans back against Ryan's desk, staring at the murder board, but after a minute, he feels himself zone out.

He feels her lips on him, the soft envelope of warmth that she wrapped him in for those few seconds, the feeling of her hands on his face again, the smell of her shampoo, he can even taste the thin layer of lip gloss she had on. He feels his heart flutter at his senses being overwhelmed by a mere memory, and one that probably shouldn't have happened in the first place, making it that much more potent.

He's always wondered if he's had this effect on her. If it was this bad for her after their first kiss that night. Sure, they might have had more pressing things to worry about at the time, but did she ever get stopped in a mundane task at home by that memory, her mind and her senses getting over encumbered by him, by the simple memory of a moment that probably shouldn't have happened? And would she have done it again, or would she have taken it back if she had the chance?

He knows asking himself these questions is pointless, and will only lead to a poor result. The only thing he's ever sure of, or at least has some flimsy grasp on, is how he felt. Whatever effect he had or does have on her is hers to feel and analyze.

But he does want them to talk. Not these out of nowhere, in the middle of crime scenes spewings of how they feel and what they did wrong. He wants to have a real talk with her. He knows it's what they need.

"So, Greg Mathis's cell phone has been turned off. Neighbor's say he hasn't been around all day, but they're putting his picture out to the media and telling all brunette woman to be on guard." Beckett says, coming to stand next to him. Castle simply nods, his mind still in another place, and a better time. "You okay?" She asks casually, tapping him in the shoulder with her elbow.

He looks over to her, taking a second to come back to the present. "Yeah." He answers, looking away from her softly arched brow and her casually concerned frown. He sees her nod and look down to the floor.

"Well, the captain wants us here until word gets back from the canvass of Greg's neighborhood, so we might be here a while." She says, probably a prompt to get him talking. After his only response is a nod, "I'm gonna... go make some coffee." She tells him quickly, turning around and escaping what he was turning into an awkward moment between them. He hears her heels click off through the bullpen, the sleeves on her dark blue turtle neck sweater rolled up, hair bouncing as she turns into the breakroom.

He lets out a long breath, laced with impatience with himself and frustration at them both and pushes off Ryan's desk. He wishes he didn't have to do this here. But if he were to leave tonight with his mind on everything that it's on right now, he'd get as much sleep as he did last night, none. He sees her near the coffee machine, her hands going from nob to knob, obviously trying to remember how to work it. He lets out a short breath, relaxing himself and heads inside. He only gains her attention when he closes the door behind him and the blinds swing against the window. "Sit down." He tells her, a soft suggestion coupled with a nod of his head as he moves toward her.

He takes the metal cup from her and she pauses in front of him before she moves away from him and to a table in the middle. As he starts softly packing the grounds, then putting them in to make her latte, he starts thinking of what he wants to say. He knows it's pointless to, that he's just going to end up saying whatever he feels in the moment he starts talking. But he knows what needs to be said, and what he wants to hear.

There's a couple minutes of silence as he watches the foam rise from the pitcher and starts to pour two small cups. He can feel her watching him, and she's probably smiling. She always did say that he was the best at running the precinct's espresso machine. He takes a small stirring straw out and runs it down the middle of the circle he just poured. For some reason, he feels like he's going to embarrass himself by doing that. but he picks up the two cups and turns around, gently setting hers down in front of her.

He sees her look down into the cup and can practically feel the warmth radiating off her smile. Proud of himself, he sits on the stool across from her, taking a brief sip of his own. "We need to talk." He says, setting his cup back down.

After she sets hers back down, she nods. "Yeah." She keeps her eyes down into her cup and lets a breath out through her nose. "Yeah, we do."

There's a pause between them where he hopes that she'll start, but knows it has to be him. But in that time, he can't take his eyes off her wedding band, and can't help but wonder if she's noticed his. "Beckett, I don't know how long it's going to take." He starts softly. "I wish I had an answer for you. The truth is it could be tomorrow, it could be a couple years from now, but I don't know when I can trust you again." He sees her eyes shoot off to the side, but still not to him. "I want to. But I don't know what it's going to take."

She lets out another short breath, shakes her hair out of her face and looks up to him. "I know I've hurt you, Castle. And if it would make a difference, I would tell you that it was _never_ my intention. I wish I knew what it is I could do to get you to trust me again." She lets out another breath that has a bit of a shudder to it and looks away again. "But I guess... I could start by telling you how much I regret ever leaving you."

"Now." He interjects. She looks back up to him, a lift in her brow at him calling her out again. "You regret leaving now." She breaks off eye contact again and lets her head crane forward again. "Did you think about me?" He asks, gaining her attention again. "At all? Did you... find yourself waking up in the morning and reaching over to the other side of the bed, trying to pull me in or... did you find yourself scanning faces on the street, feeling a stab in your gut every time you didn't find it?"

Her nose sniffles and she reaches up, quickly swiping away a tear with her finger. "You know, I look back and tell myself that I tried not to, because I knew that if I did, it would only hurt too much, but... the truth is that not a day passed by where you didn't race through my mind. But then there were days where I could smell your cologne, and feel you holding me. The dreams were probably the worst. Some mornings I'd wake up and I'd still be crying. Our first anniversary, I don't think I even got out of bed. I just spent the day in bed trying to go back to sleep just so I could dream about you." In a sick way, and a way he is ashamed of, he was hoping it would be more painful than that for her.

But he decides to try and trump her. "You know, when I was gone, you were all I could think about." He tells her.

Her eyes shoot up, wide at first, them squinted with a puzzled look. "You remember what happened to you?"

"About a month after you left, I started getting migraines, flashes of a place I didn't remember but felt like I've been before. After a couple weeks, I got in contact with an old friend from the FBI and he took me through a serious of cognitive interviews and helped me remember what happened to me the rest of the time I was gone." She silently asks him to tell her what it was, and he looks off to the side briefly, wanting to get back on track. "After I helped Balil, I was held for what they called my safety. They wanted to make sure that no one else was targeting me. But when intel got out of who help him, they sent someone to try and kill me." Deciding to leave out the part of him having to escape in the dead of night while being shot at, "Long story short, I was forced to cut my debriefing short."

She has a deep look in her eyes, as if telling him that he shouldn't have had to go through any of that, and he would address it, but he didn't want to change the subject.

"The point is I thought about you, Kate. Every minute, every day. You were all I could think about, all I could talk about. I argued with him everyday to let me get back to you. And it killed me because I pictured you, in your wedding dress, happiest woman on the planet on what was suppose to be the happiest day of your life, and who was suppose to be your husband having just been abducted. And the longer I just waited around for him to let me go, the more you'd think that I left by choice, and I thought that if that happened, you'd never be able to forgive me."

She lets out another breath, and hears her swallow down her emotions that are starting to manifest physically. "Do you think we'll ever be back to normal?" She asks. He can hear honesty in her question, genuinely wanting to know if there really is a way back for them.

He sighs and looks down to his largely untouched latte. "I want there to be. But it can't be as simple as just going back to normal."

"Castle," she says, softly enough to get him to look back up to her, "what is it you _want_ me to do? Not what you think needs to be done, but what you want me to do."

He sighs, deciding to, for once, be honest with both of them. "What I want..." he trails off. "You know, I don't want this to be it, and I know it's going to sound incredibly selfish and something that I never thought I'd ask of anyone, especially you, but... I want to come first." He can tell saying that struck a chord with her. Her expression just want to wanting to blank faster than he wants to wait to figure out what it means to her. "My whole life, I've always come in second place. Everything from my mother sending me off to boarding school, to you choosing an investigation over me. And with the exception of Alexis, I've always put you first. Always."

He can tell that she wants to say something, has something on the edge of her throat that she wants to say. Maybe she doesn't know how to voice it, or maybe doesn't want him to know what it is.

But after a few long seconds of silence, he saves her from saying it. "And the problem is I don't know if you can do the same."

She takes in another clogged breath in through her nose and reaches across the table, putting her hands over his, but not meeting his eyes. "Rick, all my life, I've been on my own." He had hoped that she would own up to it, but knew that it was a high hope. "I've never had to put anyone else before myself. And I used to think that if I did, it would just give people an easier way to walk all over me. And you're right, you've always thought of me first, but I never let myself fully do the same because it would've meant admitting to myself that I not only was in love with you, but that I needed you in my life. I thought that I was getting better at it. And I tried to tell myself that not involving you in my investigation into Locksat was keeping you safe, and that I _was_ thinking of you first, but I know now that it was just a... cheap cop-out to avoid blame for what I did to you."

He fights back the urge to move his hands and entwine their fingers together, but can't stop the subconscious movement of his thumb against hers.

"Castle, I used to believe that my job was the most important thing in my life." She says, finally meeting his eyes again. "Then when you dug up my mom's case, it was bringing her justice. And I never believed any different because you were always around. But the truth is, Rick..." She pauses, looking down at their hands and moving them to entwine their fingers together, " _You_ are the most important thing in my life. And whether I realized it or not, you always have been." She pauses and her feels her running her thumb against his, seeing a soft light of sincerity it her eyes. "Always."


	11. Chapter 11

Castle lays back on the couch in the break room with one hand behind his head and the other tucked into his pocket. His eyes are closed after losing that particular battle and is now fighting off the takeover of sleep. Beckett stepped out of the room not too long ago after a somewhat awkward separation to go look over some employee records from the hospital with a mothering like request that he get some rest. And now he lays back on the couch, begrudgingly listening to the demands of his at-one-time wife.

He lets out another long breath to clear out his lungs and hears some fast footsteps going through the precinct. He pops his head up and sees Esposito and Ryan escorting a thin, short black kid into the interrogation room. He's on his feet and out in the bullpen before they comeback to explain. His mind already switched back to the case at hand, he goes over to Beckett, whose at Ryan's old desk looking up from paperwork. "What's going on?" He asks.

"The boys went back to the hospital to canvas and young Tyrone Baxter took off running when they asked about Greg. Brought him in for questioning." She tells him, standing up and folding closed a folder and putting it under one arm.

Castle lets out a sigh of frustration. "I need you to pull up Tyrone Baxter's record." He sternly demands, eyes already on her computer screen.

He can see her get taken back by his sudden demanding shift in attitude, but sits back down and complies. "Tyrone Baxter... got busted on a misdemeanor drug charge at sixteen, got off with community service since it was a first offense, and got hired by the hospital through a work program three years ago. He's been clean ever since."

"Anything on his family?"

He can see her look up at him while he's leaning over her shoulder. "Why?"

"Just look for me."

She gives a slight 'whatever' look and begins typing again. "Nothing on his parents, but his brother is serving a seven year sentence on distribution. And-"

"Come with me." He says as he's quickly making his way toward interrogation.

"Wait, Castle!" He can hear her follow him.

He stops at the door of interrogation where Ryan is just coming out. He quickly looks through the window and sees Tyrone sitting in the perps chair with handcuffs on. At least that can work to his advantage. Beckett catches up to them and stands between Castle and Esposito, who just came out of observation to address the trio. "So, who do you want to go in?" Beckett asks Esposito.

Espo looks over to Castle with his arms crossed, raising a brow in a silent question. Castle lets out a small huff and goes into observation, Beckett on his coattails. "He has a bad standing with cops, his first instinct is to be uncooperative. He grew up in a bad neighborhood, so he's used to force, it's the first thing that he expects. So don't go in there and play the bad cop and intimidate, he'll shut down."

He can tell when he looks over to her for a split second from the look in her eyes that she's angry for being told how to run an interrogation, especially by him. He shouldn't let this happen. But he figures if he wants her to trust him, the first step has to be trusting her. She nods out of spite. "Okay."

Once she's out of observation and into interrogation, Espo comes up to stand next to him. "You sure about this?"

With his pulse in his throat, "Of course not."

Castle watches from observation with a nervous lump in his throat as Beckett calmly walks into the interrogation room and sets down the folder on the table and folds her hands together on the table across from Tyrone. Tyrone doesn't make eye contact, as expected, and leans back in his chair with his hands in his lap. It's silent between the two for a minute solid and Castle can tell this letting her in there was a mistake. "Esposito."

"Give her a chance, bro." He reassures him calmly.

"Why'd you run, Tyrone?"

Castle grits his teeth. "I ain't talkin'." Tyrone responds and leans back even further, even more asserting dominance in the situation. He can tell that Beckett read this gesture and is just getting angrier by the way she just folded the file closed on the table.

"See, _I_ think you ran because you know something about your friend... Greg Mathis." He shouldn't have let her in there. Tyrone just turns his head more to the side. "I think that... maybe he mentioned something one day..." Beckett gets up from her chair and sits on the side of the table, trying to leer over him. "This can go either way for you, Baxter, so you either tell me where Greg is-"

"Espo, give me the keys to his cuffs." Castle says urgently with an outstretched hand.

"Or I _sail_ you down the river for obstruction of justice!" Beckett shouts.

"Bitch, I got rights. Get out my face!" Castle hears Tyrone shout back.

He throws open the door to interrogation just as Beckett is on her feet, seething. " _Beckett,_ that's enough." He scolds.

Beckett turns and looks at him with more disdain than he's ever seen from her. But he stays stoic as he steps to the side, making sure not to make eye contact with Tyrone. She stomps out of the room and he closes the door behind him slow and calm. Espo is looking at Castle, silently asking if he should be the one to go talk to her. But it's too late. They can both hear the loud click of her heels come storming back. He's hardened himself up too much to care how angry she is right now. "How _dare_ you tell me how to run an interrogation!" She seethes through clenched teeth, pointing a pointy finger in his chest.

"I told you not to get angry, Beckett."

"There are girls dying out there, Castle, we don't have time to be everyone's friend!"

"And because you didn't listen to me, we'll be lucky if we get anything out of him now." He fires back with a calm anger.

"Don't you _ever_ insinuate I don't know what I'm doing, Castle."

"This isn't like going after Loksat, Kate! You don't get to beat your answers out of everybody anymore."

"I never laid a hand on anybody!" She shouts.

" _Hey!"_ Esposito finally interjects, stepping in between the two, facing Beckett. "Let's take a walk." He says, motioning down the hall.

"Javi-" Beckett tries to throw him off.

"That's an order, Detective Beckett."

After a few moments of silence so thick it has everyone frozen in place, Beckett huffs her way down the hall. Javier shoots Castle a look over his shoulder and nods toward interrogation. Castle takes in a long breath to relax himself and push clear his mind. He calmly opens the door, where Tyrone is still leaning back in his chair, face more screwed tight than before. Castle goes over and unlocks his cuffs without a word, taking them off and placing them in his back pocket, then starts taking off his jacket. "I apologize for my partner's behavior." He starts in a calm, friendly manner as he sits down across from him.

Tyrone remains silent.

"Can I get you anything? Water, coffee? We have a great espresso machine here, bought it myself." He says with a smile.

Tyrone turns his head toward him, "Water's cool."

Castle smiles a friendly smile and goes out into the hall way, quickly filling up a plastic cup full of water and going back inside, sitting it down in front of him. Castle sits back down and puts one foot on his knee.

Tyrone takes a quick drink and nods toward Castle. "You ain't a cop, are you."

Castle raises a brow. "What gave it away?"

"No cop would wear wingtips that expensive."

Castle chuckles loudly and looks down at his shoes. "Ha, I guess not." A slight weight lifts off his chest. At least he's getting somewhere. "Listen, Tyrone, I understand your situation. Cops what to talk to you about something, you have a record, you get scared and run."

"I get busted again, I lose my job. I got my mom to support, man."

"You're not in any sort of trouble, Tyrone."

Tyrone snorts and nods his head. "Yeah yeah, that's what you cops all say. They told that to my big brother too. Sent him to Rickers for bogus drug charges."

"Bogus? Why do you say that?"

"Man, my brother didn't sell no drugs. He was driving this guys car back to Long Island, they get pulled over and searched and find drugs and he gets busted for selling because he 'matched the description' of some dude they've been after."

"Did they tell this to the judge?" Castle asks, honestly curious.

"Judge didn't want to hear it, and that lame ass defender didn't do shit. Worst part was, the guy whose drugs they were got off with two years."

"Two years, why is that?"

"Who'd you want out on the streets, a black kid from the projects or a white kid from the suburbs?"

After a cursory glance of the file, seeing that the white kid from the suburbs was able to make bale, but didn't provide legal counsel for Tyrone's brother, Castle closes the file. "Well, I may not be a cop, but I am owed a few favors. I can't get your brother off scot-free, but what I can do is get the judge to take another look at his case."

"Yeah, for what?"

"Well, a judge is a lot more lenient if I can tell him that you were helpful in the solving of a murder case. Trust me, that goes a long way with a judge. Best case scenario, he gets off with time served."

After a few hopeful moments, Tyrone nods. "Alright."

"What can you tell me about Greg Mathis?"

* * *

Beckett stomps on ahead of Javier in pure rage, still seething. "Yo! What was that about?"

"Who the hell is he to tell me how to run an interrogation, Javi?"

"Beckett, you know guys like that. They see a badge and come out of the gates swinging. You knew that going in. What the hell happened?"

"I had him, Javi!"

"No, you didn't!" He says back, on the verge of shouting. "Now you can tell me what's really going on here or you I can have the captain put you on desk detail."

From the cocked back head and squared off shoulders, he would. She grits her teeth and crosses her arms, leaning back against the rail of the stairwell. "I've been doing this my whole life, Espo. I'm back for two days and Castle's the one telling me how to run an interrogation?" She says with a nod toward the door to the bullpen.

"When me and Ryan left, you two were ready to fog up the windows of the break room, what the hell happened to that?"

She purses her lips and gives him a blithe look. "It's not like that, Javi." She says on an unconvincing whisper. He just crosses his arms in defense. She shakes her head and looks to the concrete floor of the stairwell. "Before I left, when we were hot on a case, when one of us had a thought, we'd tell each other. But now, it's like he's keeping everything from me."

"From you? Beckett, I've been working with the new Castle for a year and a half and I can tell you, I can count the number of days I'm _not_ in the dark with him on one hand. Most of the time, he has Lanie give him the details, walks around the crime scene a bit, leaves and hands us our killer."

"But Espo-"

She's interrupted by the door opening. "Hey guys," Ryan says, "Castle got something from Baxter."

"Thanks, bro." Esposito says and starts up the stairs, looking back toward Beckett. "You coming, detective?"

While fighting the tight mixture of pride, embarrassment, anger, and regret swirling in the pit of her stomach, she takes an unsatisfying breath and pushes off the wall and up the stairs. When she walks into the bullpen, she sees Esposito just walking up to the murder board, where Ryan is standing leaned back on her old desk, now his, and Castle is at the murder board talking to him, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. He has his story telling face on. And just for a moment, she's brought back to a time when standing next to him at that murder board is where she would feel the most welcome and at home.

She forces the ball of emotions to shake, swallows her pride, and starts toward the trio. "So, if it wasn't Greg's aunt who abused him, why is he killing young brunette woman?" Ryan asks him.

"His aunt may not have been the one abusing him, but she didn't do anything to stop it, which in his eyes is just as bad."

"And since he can't make his aunt feel what he went through..."

"He's doing the next best thing with his victims."

"Wait," Beckett interjects, "if it wasn't his aunt who abused him as a kid, then who did?" She asks, forgetting her emotional turmoil in lieu of the case.

"According to Tyrone, some boyfriend that she had. But he's not Greg's source of anger. It's his aunt for not stopping it. In his eyes, when his mother died, the only person he had to turn to for protection would have been his aunt. And when she offer that, he felt betrayed. But now that he can't make her pay, he's making his victims do it for her."

"So, did he tell you where he would go?"

"Tyrone said that Greg mentioned something about an old mill that used to be near his aunt's apartment that he used to get in trouble for playing in as a kid. He said he used to go in there and hide from her boyfriend when he'd come home drunk looking for him."

"We got an address?" Ryan asks.

"Tory should be sending it in a moment." He says with a nod.

Espo taps his shoulder with the file in his hand before waving Ryan to follow him, grabbing his jacket and is heading out the door.

Castle stays standing in place, while Beckett nervously shuffles toward him with her arms crossed. "That was pretty good, Castle."

"After this long, you still don't trust me?" He asks her with an angry undertone.

"Rick..." She says lowly with a small shake of her head.

"I want my wife back, Kate." That garnered eye contact from her. He's looking at her with a looked laced with concern. "But that wasn't her." He pauses with his mouth open, but closes and lets whatever words he was going to say fall with a small sigh under his breath, then starts to go around her to follow the boys.

She catches his elbow with her hand to stop him. She looks up at him with eyes that are burning. She looks down and pulls his hand out of his pocket, taking the fingers of his left hand in hers, fanning them out until she's holding his wedding bang with her fore finger and thumb. "I was the one that put this ring on your finger, Castle." She says, looking him in the eye. "I am your wife."

* * *

 **A/N: Been a while, I guess. :)**

 **Review maybe?**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Probably should have mentioned that I couldn't bring myself to watch the last three or four episodes of the series. I just couldn't take it anymore. But I did see the very last scene, and... I mean, come on. You expect me to believe that Beckett, who is in her late thirties before the flash forward, had a daughter with out complications, then had a set of twins what looks like two years later? And their daughter looks no older than five, so she had to have been born when Beckett was just hitting forty, then the twins at about forty two. And you expect me to believe she looks better? I'm sorry, and it's a great story, but most woman have problems getting pregnant in their MID thirties, even with hormone treatments, and even then they have complications.**

 **But that's why fanfction writers exist. So we can fix what they screwed up! :)**

 **(Also, to the reviewer posting reviews in a language other than English, English is my only language. Sorry :/)**

* * *

After another moment of a long held look into each others eyes, that any time when they were together would have ended up with them a tangled mess of out of breath limbs, Castle shakes his head, pulls his sweaty hand out of hers and heads toward the elevator. She lets out a sigh of deep disappointment that a somewhat shocked and hidden confused look is all she got out of him, and follows him.

The four ride the elevator down and split up outside to go to their respective cars. The ride is made in silence, both of them deciding to stay focused on the task at hand. She wants to address all this, to talk it out with him. She is repeating her words in her head over and over again, refining them, even practicing what inflection to use when she says them. She wishes she could just grab his stubble and kiss him hard enough that he'd take her back. Take the easy way out of it... as they have always done.

She feels her confidence fall when that thought crosses her mind. Confidence in them. A seed of doubt that eventually sprouts the thought that maybe they just aren't as good together as she remembers. But she's brought out of that fog by Esposito's car stopping in front of her and seeing her absent mind has taken her to their destination. She takes a deep breath, shoves it all back to the back of her mind and gets out of the car toward the trunk.

After dawning their vests, the four meet by Esposito's car while Beckett and Ryan unholster their guns to do a quick assessment of them, while Esposito already has his out and in his hands. But when she looks over, she feels something churn in her stomach when she sees Castle with a gun in his hands. His eyes are focused on Espo, his hands gaunletted on his what looks like Sig Sauer forty caliber.

"Alright, me and Ryan go in the front. Beckett, you and Castle go in the back." Esposito orders, bringing her out of her confusion, and if she's being honest, worry.

"And be careful." Castle says. "Not only does he know this place a lot better than we do, he sees this as his turf. He's going to be bold and dangerous." She concedes that he has a solid point and squares her shoulders and moves along the wall of the old, run down, brick building toward the back, Castle in close tow.

Once at the back door to the building, she stops, looking over to Castle whose positioned himself on the opposite side. "Are you okay?" She asks quickly, saying the most neutral thing she can think of to ask why he has a gun.

"You want to take point or should I?" He fires back just as quickly, both dodging and answering her question at the same time.

"I'll take point, Castle. Just remember-"

"Trigger squeeze, front sight, follow through, keep it closed, elbows in, give you room to breath and move at pace, I know, Beckett."

She can simply stand inwardly gawking at him. He just recited, verbatim, what she was taught at the Academy. She closes her mouth, lifts her gun and moves into the building with one quick step, following the narrow hall way, lined with old plastic wrappers, windows grown useless with dirt and dust, and old belts discarded from machinery. She can feel her breath going in and out in a quick and shallow pace past the weightless lump in her throat. She's worried about Castle, but knows he's armed, obviously trained, and shouldn't be. But it's blown from her mind when she hears a scrape along a dusty wooden floor.

She lifts her sights up to the end of the hall, takes a step to her left to hug the wall. She takes a quick look over her shoulder and sees Castle holding his own gun in the same direction about five feet behind her, hugging the opposite wall. She tightens herself and looks forward, putting her focus on the end of the darkened hallway. _"All clear in the front, Beckett."_ Ryan calls over the radio.

"Nothing back here yet, Ryan." She calls back.

After passing an adjacent hall way, she looks back toward Castle, giving him a cursory look. After a quick nod, he goes off, only making the lump in her throat grow larger.

She lets out as much breath as she can and looks forward again, trying as hard as she can to stay focused on the job. She squeezes the grip of her Glock even tighter and keeps moving slowly down the hall way. She passes a pair of old rest rooms, a boarded up loaded bay door on her left, clearing all before coming to the end of the hall, where it ends and goes to the right. She can hear Esposito and Ryan above her, clearing the upstairs. And once she's nears the end of the hall, she breaks her form to call over the radio.

But once she does, feels her gun being knocked out of her hand in a forceful, downward hit, and before she can react, there's a strong, cold whip across her face, making her stumble toward the wall to her left. The sudden whiplash, coupled with the pain meds she's on for her still aching injuries sustained before she came back, the dizziness is quick to set in, and forfeit her ability to react to the arm being wrapped around her neck, and the gun being put to her head.

She knows she lets out some sort of grunt, a sound of pain of some kind. " _Shut_ up!" A violent hiss comes spitting right behind her ear. The arm around her neck tightens and begins to choke her. She tries to shake him off, but the vertigo she's in is keeping from doing it, and by the time she feels she's able to, she's acutely aware of the gun being pressed to her temple.

She feels herself being turned around quickly so she's now looking down the hall way she just walked down. "Let her go." A deep, very strong voice comes booming and echoing through the brick hallway. She forces her eyes to focus, and sees her husband standing just ten feet away, gun trained forward.

It's then that she can feel all her senses regain themselves. She grabs the arm around her neck, but it just tightens and makes the barrel of the gun against her head press its cold metal more forcefully. And with the cobwebs shaken from her mind, when she looks at her husband, she's overcome. She can feel her eyes starting to burn. "Castle." She says in a voice that doesn't feel like hers. It's too shaky and weak.

"Let her go, Greg." He says louder, putting more anger and base in his voice.

She can hear his ragged, hissing breath against her ear. "Castle, I'm sorry." She says, tears spilling from her eyes. Her body wants to fall, her legs feel like their shaking, and she wants him to pick her up.

"Beckett..."

"I'm so sorry, Castle, and I love you." She practically pleads on chocked sobs.

"Kate." He says in a stern voice, looking her directly in the eye. "I understand." He says, in a slow voice, as Greg leads her off the wall and toward the middle of the hall. "I know that it's important to you. But I promise," he says, raising his brow, "we will do whatever it takes to catch the man who killed your mother."

When she looks in his eye, she knows. Greg takes another hissing breath and tightens the arm he has around her neck once more. "What are you talking about?" He asks, pointing the gun at her husband.

It's then that she leans her head forward, then sends it back as hard as she can, feeling it hit against Greg's nose, then quickly stumbles out of the way. Not even a second passes before a double tab ring out. Once she settles on the ground from where she lost her footing and fell on the ground, she looks next to her, where Greg Mathis, just a scrawny kid in his early twenties, lies in a quickly expanding pool of blood, eyes glossed and nose bloodied.

Her hearts pounding, she can feel her blood pump with ever heart beat, and she can feel her ears ringing. She only feels this for a quick moment before she feels all too familiar hands on her thigh and shoulder. "Beckett, are you okay?"

She's brought out of her daze when his hand on her cheek guides her to his eyes. They're so full of worry, concern, and love, that she has to reach out to him. She lifts her hand up and puts it on his jaw. "I love you, Castle." Are the only words she can think of as she feels cold tears roll down her cheeks.

She hears him let out a small sigh of contentment and moves his hand to the back of her head and bring her into his shoulder. Being held against his shoulder, she closes her eyes and lets her hands climb up his back and wrap around his shoulders. And even in this awkward position in the last place she'd want to, being in his arms again brings her a warm bliss that washes over her and makes the need to tell him how much he means to her all the more evident. To just have it all spill out. "Come on." He tells her, putting her arm around his neck and pulling her to her feet, even though her legs feel shaky and jittery, her arms still demanding her that she put them around him again.

"Castle." She says, putting her hands anywhere they'll go on him by grabbing the seem of his vest and his lower jaw. He has an arched brow and look of deep worry. And before she can think of what to say, she stops when she realizes that he's still holding her, his hands on her waist. When she does, she can feel herself being pulled forward, to just drift into the solid mass of comfort and protection that he offers her. When she realizes she hasn't said anything yet, she feels another tear scurry out of her eye lid.

When Esposito and Ryan come running down the hall, Castle is shaken out of it, but she isn't. All she can focus on his him, is being with him again. Castle takes a large step back, but she stays where she is as Esposito looks over the body, and Ryan gets on his radio to call in the investigation team. And while call she can do is stare at him, making no effort to hide her emotion, she just watches as Castle reholsters his weapon while talking to Esposito. She knows it's about her by his body language, the look in his eye, his soft, worried expression, and the way he not so subtly nodded his head toward her. Esposito nods and Castle gives her one last look before going down the hall way with Ryan. Her legs tell her to follow him, to catch up to him and grab him and just let it all spill out. But she's stopped by Esposito, gently pressing against her shoulder to gain her attention. "Yo, you alright?"

She shakes her head. "Wha... Yeah, I'm fine." She says, looking down the hall, only to watch Castle in step with Ryan as they head outside. "I-I just need to..." She stutters as she steps forward on shaky legs, which is clearly evident in her walk.

Esposito grabs her arm as she stumbles. "Woah woah woah." He says, obviously catching her more than stopping her. She's more out of sorts than she thought. "Paramedics are on the way, they'll look you over."

After leading her outside, waiting with Espo while Ryan and Castle talk by the other side of the street, she's making no attempt to hide the fact that all she can do is look at him, hoping that he can feel her watching and look back. He has yet to do so, even as the paramedics arrive, right behind a crime scene unit to look over the scene. And while she's sitting on the back of the ambulance with a paramedic shining a flash light in her eyes, she sees Castle talking to Captain Griffin, who seems pleased with the situation. After asking her what medication she's on, the paramedic does nothing more than to tell her to rest. She nods, feeling her center of gravity and her head in the right place.

After the paramedic leaves her, Captain Griffin comes up to her. "Castle told me what happened, Detective Beckett." He says, arms crossed.

She nods, somewhat nervous as to what he means. "Yes, sir." Is all she can say.

"From what he told me, it seems to me you just knew what he was telling you to do. To mimic the move he used to put down Coonan? That's impressive, Beckett."

She smiles. "Well, sir, me and Castle always made a good team." She says with pride seeping into her smile.

The Captain nods. "Well, I think you've earned a few days off, consider it medical leave. Back at the precinct on Monday though, Detective." He says, looking at her over his glasses.

"Yes, sir." She says with a nod while standing up. Once she puts her jacket back on, she sees him walking in her direction while she's pulling her hair out from behind her jacket. Her breath goes nervous and she feels much less confident in what she has to say now. But she's forcing herself to say it anyway.

"Hey." He says with no happy or upward inflection. It's serious.

She chokes on too many words at once, and all she can manage is "Hey."

He puts his hands in his pockets and shuffles from side to side for a moment. "Beckett, when Greg had you-"

"I love you, Castle." She stops him, the need to tell him getting too much traction in her conscience.

"Kate..." He says with a shake of his head.

"Castle, just a few days ago, I was staring death in the face and all I wanted to do was tell you how much I love you." She says, trying to squelch the tremble in her voice. But nonetheless, she feels herself take a step toward him so he's mere inches away from her. "Because I do, Rick, I love you with all my heart, and I'm so sorry that I did this to us and that you feel I'm not the woman you married and that you don't love me anymore, but I promise you, Rick, if it takes the rest of my life, I'll-"

She's silenced by his lips, grabbing her and pulling her onto him. And once she realizes what's happening, her hands go into his hair, her arms snake around his neck and she pours two long, lonely years of passion into kissing him, tears streaming down her face more now than when she wasn't kissing him. His lips feel so good on hers again. He's kissing her just like he used to, pressing her into him with hands on her back, his lips making sweet passes against hers that make her insides curl. After one long kiss that the two hold for a good ten seconds, he stops and leans back. He looks into her eyes with a blank look. "I never said I didn't love you, Kate."

* * *

It's his back that pushes the door to his apartment open, and hers that closes it. It's the trail of each others clothing as he leads her to his bedroom. It's her bare legs jumping up and wrapping around his waist right as she steps out of her slacks. It's his teeth sinking into the crock of her neck that's either the cause of her deep, unhinged moan, or the reason because of it. It's the bedding that's does everything but get in the way of the two.

There's no words. No apologies, no confessions. Just silent love making, save for the unintelligible sounds they make and the sounds of their bodies moving together. And everything he does, every movement his hands make, his lips make, that he makes, brings her back to when they were truly and happily married, which gnaws the pit of her stomach and makes her pour that much more passion into her own actions.

It's slow then fast, passionate then angry, sensual then desiring, touching then clawing. It's every side of each one of them that they have to show. And it isn't until they can't decide whether to call it late at night or early in the morning that they come to any sort of stop. And with her being nuzzled into his side with his arm both lazily draping over her shoulder and gently preventing her from escaping that she can finally go to bed without tossing.


	13. Chapter 13

He never bothered to go to sleep.

He can't recall how long they went for, but it wasn't until he was sure that the softly breathing weight on top of his chest was actually her sleeping that he looked at the time, which read just past four in the morning. It's now close to seven thirty, and he's still wide awake. He's just laying back, staring at the ceiling with one hand under his pillow and the other draped over her, his thumb brushing against her soft, warm skin back and forth.

When she came back, and he quickly found out she wanted to go back to the way things were, he told himself not to fall for it. That they wouldn't improve if his arms were wide open like they've always been. That they would get nowhere and fall into the same pattern of self sacrifice and swallowing the hard words in lieu of sweet nothings. That's how all those gigantic steps backward happened. Her job in DC, that flaming pile of self righteous dog crap that tried to steal her from him, even him finding out she lied about hearing his confession that day. It's always been them having to work back up, gaining no ground and making no real progress.

But when she said that she thought he didn't love her... he couldn't keep it up. Is that really what he was saying? Is that what his actions were making her think? Not a day went by that he even thought for a second that he didn't love her anymore. He was angry, sure, but never did he even think that he didn't love her. It's been hard, but he's always loved her. It's been this painful because he loves her so god damn much. And when she said otherwise, he couldn't take it anymore.

He knows they will have to talk all this out. And he can tell that it's going to be a day of them having no ambition to get out of bed, or even put on clothes. And he misses those days. It's those days when they'd just lay back and confess memories that no one else had ever heard, often painful ones. And it was those days where they'd make the most headway, where they'd grow the closest. But what kills him is that if she realized it was happening, she would have probably clammed up. But them lying naked in bed after a long night of sex dulls those keen senses of hers that are usually so attune to things like that.

He takes a deep breath and looks down at her. She looks so peaceful. It's that look that gives him the most hope. Not her sunshine, face splitting smile that only he's been able to get from her from time to time. But this calm serenity of her just sleeping on top of his chest, her ear to his heart. Anywhere else, she has a razor focus that can't be broken, easily bothered. But here, it's right here when she looks her softest. And it's this look that he can't help but pull his hand out from underneath his pillow and gently caress her cheek, moving a stray strand of hair behind her ear. God, she's beautiful.

Right as his hand leaves her skin, she starts to stir, sliding her bare leg against his and pushing herself up the bed and burrowing herself deeper into his side. She lets out a small moan when she settles back down. It's a few seconds after that that he feels the fluttering tickle against his chest of her eye lashes. He looks back down from smiling up at the ceiling and sees her eyes open. And moments after, feels her smile against him. Her hands fan out against his side from where it was lazily draped. She squeezes him in a hug and audibly takes in a long breath in through her nose, moaning quietly to herself as she lets it out.

And it's this type of thing that drives him nuts for her. The fact that she wouldn't be doing anything like this if she knew he was wide awake kills him. It's that type of thing that he _has_ to see to know how much she really adores him, and that there's actual feeling and genuine emotions behind her words. And as this thought festers, watching her nuzzle her cheek against his chest, he wants her to know what he's thinking, and maybe for once, wants her to know what it is he wants from all this. "I've got to say..." He says suddenly.

She jumps, her head shooting off of his chest and her eyes looking at him widely in surprise at her being watched.

"That was really cute." He says with a warm smile.

Much to his surprise, her cheeks flush and a happy smile spreads across her face. She then snakes her arm tighter around him and lays her head back down, settling it just below his shoulder. "I thought I forgot what it feels like to wake up next to you." She says in a soft voice.

He lays his head back down, moving his hand down to her lower waist to run small circles against her side with his thumb. "You thought?" He asks, feeling her hand that's holding his side picking at the fingers of his hand laying next to him, trying to get them to intertwine with his, which he does, letting her fiddle with them in the brief moment of silence between them.

"When I was on the run, I'd wake up in a rental car, or in a dingy motel and reach for you... just out of instinct. And when you weren't there, I would try to remember what it felt like to actually feel you there next to me. I would bury it all when I realized I couldn't do it as easily as I thought."

He can feel his heart harden. That's not something you're supposed to bury. "It's hard to think of because it's not something you think to take in."

He can feel her breath pause, and the next breath she lets out, he can tell by the quiver against his skin that she's having a bout with her emotions. She lifts her head off his chest and presses her lips to his skin. After a few seconds, she lays her head back down, but he can sense her still having that same bout, and it's one she's losing more and more with every breath that fans out across his chest.

He strengthens his resolve and forces the words out. "I want you to tell me what you're thinking, Kate."

She sniffles and dabs her nose with her hand she has sandwiched between them. "You just made me realize how much I never stopped and took in."

"Like what?" He prods.

"What it feels like to wake up next to the man I love every morning. Or what it feels to walk through the door and know that there's someone there that cares. What it feels like to come home at the end of the day, see you and tell myself that I'm really home. I never stopped and took in what it feels like to be brought in to a family as loving and inviting as yours, and considered part of it. It feels like I just... took it all at face value."

"Kate, I want you to try something with me."

She looks up to him with red eyes. "What's that?"

"I want you to close your eyes." She closes them, but keeps facing him. "Now breath as slowly and deeply as you can." He tells her, looking up to the ceiling again. "Try to relax every muscle you can." He feels her body go just a bit more limp against him. "Now I want you to think back to the day you first came to me, and told me you wanted to be together."

"Okay." She says in a low voice.

"Your standing at the door, soaking wet. It's warm in the hall way and you had just knocked and you're waiting for me to answer. Now what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking of you... of kissing you the instant I see you."

He smiles. It's working. "Now, you see me open the door, and see me standing there. What are you thinking?"

"That I've never seen you give me that look before. Of what I've done for you to look at me like that. And how small I feel when you look at me like that."

"What happens next?"

"You ask me what I want. I feel my heart explode and say you. I start toward you, and when I see you backing away, I tell myself to stop, but I don't. I grab your face and kiss you."

"How does it feel?" He asks her, not wanting her to get too far into the woods of what he's trying to do.

She lets out a breathy chuckle. "It feels even more incredible than I remember. Your lips are warm... and so soft. God, they're soft." He feels a smug smile curl onto his face, but stops the laughter rising, knowing it would shake her back to reality. "I stop and put my hands on your shoulders, thinking how I never noticed how solid they feel, then I tell you that I'm sorry, then feel guilt wash over me at what I've done. I grab your face again and kiss you." She lets out another small chuckle. "It feels so good to be kissing you again. But then I feel you grab my arms and yank me off of you." She says, her arms flinching a bit.

He closes his own eyes and lets her slip off.

"You have a different look in your eyes now, but I still feel hopeless. I'm thinking that it isn't going to happen and that I'm too late after all. But then you ask me what happened. I look down to the ground and see the small puddle my wet clothes made. I want to say something simple and brief. Because I want to feel you again. You know words aren't my strong suit, so I'm hoping you'll understand. I tell you that he got away, hoping that you don't ask who, and then tell you that I didn't care. And I'm hoping that you believe me. I'm wanting you to know that all I want is you. I'm wanting you to see that. I tell you that I almost died, and I have to look away because I can see that guilt in your eyes. But then I tell you that the only thing I was thinking about was you. And when I say that, I feel as if I'm hanging by my finger tips again, but I'm not afraid of falling. I tell you that I just want you and look down to your lips. I want to kiss you so bad."

He opens his eyes then reaches for her face, softly running his fingers into her thick curls. She flutters her eyes open and looks up to him. "We take in more than we think, Kate."

She blinks a few times, her brow arching, and a light starting to shine in her eyes. "Castle..." She says, her breathing starting to get faster.

He sits up slightly, worry that he just did something wrong. "What is it?"

She lets out a pant and shakes her head. "I want to kiss you so bad."

Before he can argue, she slams her lips down onto his, a kiss that isn't for the feeling of having him kiss her, but just the need for that connection that she's forcing her lips down onto his as hard as she can. Once she breaks the fierce kiss, he leans up and captures her lips in a much softer one, getting her to slow the pace. He puts a hand on her neck and stops her from going too far by refusing to release this soft, sensual kiss. There's nothing more he wants to do than kiss her, to make love to her all day like she had probably planned to do the second she made herself aware of her surroundings when she woke up. But that's the problem, and he knows this. Months of dwelling and the perfect vision that hindsight allows gave him that.

She probably didn't mean to back then. Using her feminine wiles against him to avoid talking about things that any normal couple usually has no trouble getting out of the way so they can be happy. And it's as much his fault as hers, or maybe it's entirely his fault. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing, and it's his fault for wanting her so damn much.

Either way, it can't continue if this is to finally work once and for all. So he releases her lips as softly as he can, keeping their foreheads pressed together. And he can tell by the way she just deflated that she feels defeated by his gesture. She sighs softly and starts to lay back down next to him, opting to lay next to him, and not cuddled up into his side. He turns, leans up on his elbow and looks down to her. After a few seconds of staring blankly up at the ceiling, she looks over to meet his gaze. She reaches up and puts her hand on his jaw, brushing her fingers across it. "What did I do to us, Rick?"

"You gave up on us."

"Castle, I never lost faith in our marriage, not even for a second." She argues in a soft, pleading voice.

"If that were true, then you never would have left."

"If I had stayed, they would have killed you. And even the thought of living in a world that doesn't have you in it kills me, Rick. I already had my mom taken from me, I wasn't going to let them take the love of my life from me too."

"At the cost of being with me? Kate, the thought of living in a world that doesn't have you in it kills me too, but if I have to give you up to keep that from happening, then what's the point? What's the difference between you leaving me to keep me from ending up dead than you leaving me and feeling like I'm dead anyway?"

"Rick, I left to protect what we have." She continues to argue, leaning up on her arm to mirror his position.

"Kate, when we said those vows to each other, they meant something. For better or worse didn't have any fine print next to it. You don't get to put us on time out for the rough waters then climb back on board when the storm passes. We're suppose to weather it together. We're suppose to have faith that the tough times will pass and that we'll come out on the other side stronger."

He pauses when he sees a tear fall from her lashes.

"So if you left me for this storm, what's to stop you from leaving when the next one comes?"

She's not answering, nor making any move to. She just keeps staring into his eyes past her own tears that she's fighting to keep in.

She finally loses and her composure finally shatters. She falls into him in silent tears, and he turns on his back and holds her, running his hand up and down her spine. "How did we get here, Castle? I never wanted to leave you." She struggles to say, her voice muffled by her hiding her face in his chest. "Lok-sat seemed like the biggest threat to everything we worked so hard to get that I was willing to give it all up to protect it. Then Rita came in and said that-"

"Rita?" He stops her and asks.

She lifts her head up off his chest and looks at him with red eyes.

"Who the hell is Rita?"

Her eyes flick off to the side for a moment, wondering what brought upon this sudden shift in subject. "She's your step mother." She says and he lifts his brow in disbelieving shock. "She saved me and Vikram when they found us. She's the one that told me about them and said I had to go into hiding."

He tried his hardest to swallow his anger and puts a hand on the back of her head, ushering her back into his embrace.

She wraps her arms around his mid-section and silently continues crying. "I'm so sorry, Castle." She mumbles.

He continues petting her hair until she falls back asleep after only a few hours of sleep. Once he's certain she's sound asleep, he slips out from underneath her, catching yet another glimpse of the large, yet somewhat faded bruising on her stomach and side. He softly pads into the other room, closing the door to his bedroom behind him and goes over to the desk drawer. He noticed with intent detail of how she'd flinch away when he'd grab her sides too hard last night. He caught a few glances of her bruising in the dark, but shook the thoughts away to focus on her.

But now that she's asleep, he's far too angry to let it go anymore. He opens the desk drawer, looking toward the bedroom one last time to make sure she's still asleep before picking up the phone that lay underneath a pile of meaningless papers. He punches in the eight digit pass code and then puts it to his ear, waiting for him to answer. After a long moment, thinking he won't answer this time, he hears movement. " _What is it, Richard?_ "

"You told me you were protecting her!" He spits angrily.

" _And I did."_

"Then why does she have bruising on her that looks like she got thrown in front of a bus!"

" _Richard, I only intervened when I saw that she wasn't going to leave alive. When she came to, I saw an opportunity to get her back to you. She believes that she accomplished her mission, she's home with you now, I assume, and we can all put this to bed."_

"Then who the hell is Rita?" There's a pause on the other end of the line, so he pulls the phone back to make sure it's still connected. "Hello?"

" _Where did you hear that name?_ " He asks in a much less certain-of-himself tone.

"My wife just told me that some woman claiming to be my step mother showed up, saved her, and then convinced her that the only way to stop Lok-sat is to leave me. Now I know for a fact that you're not married, so who the hell is she?"

" _Son, if your wife mentioned that name, then she's no safer now than she was before I started tailing her._ "

His heart starts to pound, and his nerves kick into high gear. "Why, who is she? What does she want?" He asks quickly.

" _I can't tell you, Richard, but I'll keep in touch. I'll post an ad in two days. Look for it._ "

He hears the line end and lets his arm fall down to his side. He takes a deep breath to try and rid himself of this nervous lump in his throat. They were making such headway together. Starting to anyway. He puts the phone back underneath the pile of papers and closes the drawer, then makes his way back into the bedroom to find her still sleeping soundly. He gently crawls back into bed and puts her back into his side, and she instinctively tightens her arms around him. He forces his eyes closed and puts his arms around her.

He can't tell which he's more worried about now. Her life being in danger, or her leaving again because of it.

* * *

 **A/N: I always felt like I'm the only one that was more afraid of Rita and Vikram than I was of Lok-sat. Anyway, a few people responded to my last AN, but I'm going to go ahead and keep my views of 3rd wave feminism to myself... so yeah. :)**

 **(Also, a while back I made a small change in the very first chapter to accommodate this story line. So if you remember the very first chapter before I made the edit, go back and read it if you feel confused. And again, for those of you who are new followers to the story, I try to catch as many typos as I can, but I'm going to miss a few since I'm kind of a fast reader, and can anticipate what words are coming next, but I'm going to miss a few. Forgive me, those of you who are annoyed by it. I don't use words because all the stupid blue and green lines that show up on everything I write. I write what sounds good and organic.)**


	14. Chapter 14

They sit in silence on his couch, facing out the picture windows that line one corner of his apartment. They both meandered here after scrounging what little he could find in his fridge, since his appetite isn't what it used to be since she left, and just buys food as he needs it. She's cuddle up, laying into his side with her legs curled up to her chest with her head laying on his shoulder, dawned in one of his button up shirts and a pair of his sweatpants. She's running her finger in a line against his leg, while he fiddles with a strand of her hair. It's mid afternoon, cold, and almost eerily quiet.

"Castle." She says, cutting the silence with a soft, low voice.

"Hmm." He acknowledges, twirling her already curly hair around his finger again.

"Can I ask you something?" She asks, switching from a simple line to a figure eight pattern against his leg.

"Of course."

"How did you feel when I left?"

By the tone of her soft, low, steady voice, he can tell that she'd been thinking of this, perhaps dwelling on it for a while, maybe ever since she came out of his bedroom in a thrown together outfit made up of his clothes and plopped herself down into the cove of his body without hesitation. He lets out a long breath and tilts his head back to rest on the back of the couch. He doesn't want to think back to what it felt like back then, especially now that he has her back. He knows it would just make the need to hold her that much tighter that much more persistent.

"Be honest, Rick." She adds.

He swallows, and decides to comply. "I felt like a failure."

He feels her head lift off his shoulder and the strand of hair that was clutched loosely in his fingers tug. "What do you mean?" She asks, finally showing some emotion behind her words. Not much, but some.

He brings his head back and looks at her. She has an arched brow of worry. "I mean you're the one, Kate."

Her mouth closes and her brow softens.

"I already have two failed marriages behind me, and I didn't feel anything close to what I feel for you. You're the one I wanted it to work with the most. And when you left, it..." He shakes his head and lets his head fall back again. He feels her hand press against the center of his chest, trying to get him to continue. "I thought that if I couldn't be a good enough husband to keep the one person I've ever truly been in love with around, that there was... something wrong with me. That there was just something about me that couldn't make a marriage work, even with..." He shrugs his heavy shoulders, "the one."

He feels her hand reach up to his jaw and pull his head up, and the quick glimpse of her expression tells him how much this confession cut into her. She leans up and presses her lips to his firmly, but sensually, apologetically. After a few more motions of her lips against his in the same manner, she runs her fingers against his hair and nuzzles her nose against his. "You're not the failure if it's my fault, Castle." He's about to rebut her but is silenced by her congested breathing. "You're the best husband a girl could hope for." She says, leaning back and looking at him with a watery smile. "It was me."

"Kate..."

"It was me that didn't take our vows sincerely, I was the one that broke them."

"Kate." He says much firmer, getting her attention by a hand moving up to her cheek. She's silent, still wracked with emotion. "I want to move on. I don't want to spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for something. You've apologized, now I want to move forward again... with my wife." He says with a suggestive brow.

"But Castle, I've betrayed-"

"I don't want you to spend the rest of your life with me because you feel guilty, Kate. I want you to spend the rest of your life with me because it makes you happy, just like I want you," he quickly takes her left hand off his chest and lifts her wedding band up to her view, "my wife, to be the person that I spend the rest of my life with. That's why I wanted you to marry me, Kate."

"Why?" She asks seriously. He looks at her, taken back by her seriousness. "Why me, Castle? What makes me worth all this?"

He sighs and stands up, somewhat frustrated now. He wants her back already, that should be enough. He walks over to a table against the wall and opens the middle drawer, pulling out a face down, eight by five picture frame. He turns it over and feels both a stab of grief and a lift of joy, followed by a smile sneak its way onto his face as he looks at the two people in the picture. He slowly starts back toward the couch. "Whenever I moved into this apartment, Mother gave me this. She said that she was keeping it for herself, but wanted me to have it."

He hands her the frame and she takes it in both hands, brow knotted in curiosity. The instant her eyes set themselves upon the photo, her face melts into a soft joyous expression. "I remember this." The says softly, letting her smile spread fully across her face. She runs her thumb over where he's pictured and continues. "We were barbecuing in the Hamptons and you tried to flip a burger in the air. It fell apart and you had this sunken look on your face that was so cute."

Looking at her now is what makes it all worth it. The picture is that of her, laughing so brightly that her cheeks are flush, smile so wide, bright and beautiful, she's doubled over against his chest, while he has a hand on her hip, a boyish, face splitting smile going across his face. "Whenever she gave it to me, I couldn't look at it for more than a few seconds." He confesses, which brings her out of her memory of that warm, Autumn weekend when they first got engaged.

She looks back up to him, her smile fading as quickly as it takes him to sit back down into the corner of the couch next to her. She puts her feet back up on the couch, leaning herself back into his side before looking back down at the picture, which now lay in both their laps.

"When I asked her why she never showed me this picture, she said, and I quote, 'I have never seen two more beautiful people look that happy, that naturally or that easily.'"

Her eyes turn back to the picture with a creeping smile.

"What makes you worth all this is that feeling of happiness."

"You can honestly say that you're happier putting up with me and my issues than you were before?" She asks, trying to make it an emotional question, but is betrayed by one side of her mouth perked up in a smirk.

"Was Ryan happier before he married Jenny? Is Esposito happier now that him and Lanie aren't together anymore? Was your dad happier when your mother died? I know Alexis is much happier now that she's with Dani."

She sniffles. "So what are you saying, Castle?"

"I'm saying that the woman in that picture was feeling something when this picture was taken. And what she was feeling was one of the purest forms of happiness that you can feel. And that's a happiness that someone like you, with all that life has thrown at you, deserves to feel for the rest of their life. And us being together, me getting to call you my wife, and me your husband is what makes me happy, Kate. I don't want to spend my life being miserable just to spite myself. I don't deserve that, and frankly, neither do you. For all our faults, the one thing I can say for sure is that I'm a thousand times happier when I'm with you as opposed to when I'm not."

She nods, a smile finally blossoming on her face fully. "I was pretty miserable before we met."

"Really?"

"Well... comparatively speaking."

"No need to be modest." He says sarcastically.

She rolls her eyes, which despite the turn of tone in the conversation, brings a smile to his face. "I am so much happier than I was before we got together."

"Good." He says, leaning in to kiss her sweetly. Their lips touch softly and she giggles against him.

She moans as she sits up against his kiss, "I am so," She kisses him again chastely, "so," and again, "so", and again, "so much happier." He chuckles hard and puts a hand on her neck, pulling her in. They kiss again and she leans back with a flip of her hair. "But..."

He raises an eye brow, "But?"

She leans forward, nuzzling her nose against his again before kissing him sweetly one last time. "But I want to go home." He leans back, giving her a raised brow. "To the loft, Rick."

He sighs and nods, leaning back against the couch.

"You can't tell me that this place feels like home to you."

"I never said it did. But..." He trails off.

"But?" She prods with a raised brow.

"I don't want to just settle back in and start putting this marriage back together just to have you leave again." If it wasn't for the hurt swelling back up into his eyes, she would have taken that as an insult, and not an insecurity.

She grabs his hand in both of hers and looks him in the eye. "I promise you, Castle. I'm not going anywhere." She leans forward again, but stops inches away from his lips, looking intently into his eyes. "You're my husband."

* * *

After grabbing just a few things from what little possessions he had stowed away at his apartment, and a short cab ride together, they arrive back home, to the loft. Walking hand in hand down the hallway, he takes a deep breath, unlocks the door and steps inside. He'd be lying if he had told her that this was easy for him.

He's only been back here a handful of times since he moved out. And even though he's gone through two failed marriages, watched the best one crumble to pieces just a few feet from where he's standing, and watched his daughter grow up here, the only memories that this place hold to him now are those of her. He takes a deep breath and looks out across the loft, keeping his hesitation about all this in for her sake. He wants to move forward with her, and the first step should be simply getting back to where they were in the first place, shouldn't it?

She turns into him and rubs his shoulder, planting a light kiss against his jaw. He looks over and sees her smiling up at him warmly. After a few long moments, her head cocks off to one side and her shoulders deflate. It's then that her head bows downward and she steps into him, wrapping her arms around his chest, pressing her ear to his heart. "I know that look, Castle."

His hands find her back, "What look is that?" He plays it off.

She leans back. "This doesn't feel like home to you anymore, does it?" She asks seriously.

He sighs and deflates, looking down in between them. "I'd be lying if I said-"

"Hey." A voice comes from the top of the stairs.

They both turn to see Alexis at the top of the stairs, hand on the railing and looking down at the two with a knotted brow. "Alexis." Castle says with a lift in his voice. "What are you doing here, Pumpkin?"

She doesn't move and her expression doesn't change. "I was looking for something upstairs." She says, pointing a thumb behind her, which starts a long, awkward pause between the three of them, Castle turned back to look at his daughter, Beckett leaning over and looking up at her husband, and Alexis looking at her father. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," He says, turning back to Beckett, not moving to let her out of his arms, "Beckett and I were just-"

"You're back together?" She interrupts.

"Yes." The couple answers in unison, awkwardly.

It's then that Alexis turns on a heal and goes back up to stairs. Castle sighs and feels Beckett pull herself out of his arms to head upstairs, but he stops her with a soft hand on her forearm. "Let me, I know what to say."

"Castle, I went to talk to her when I first got back."

"You did?" He asks, honestly surprised.

"She said that she didn't want me seeing you."

He looks are her confused. "What?!" He asks in a high voice.

"She was really hurt, Rick."

Castle lets out a frustrated sigh and looks up the stairs. "I swear, she can be a bigger drama queen than her grandmother."

He goes up the stairs after putting a reassuring hand on his wife's shoulder. He finds her bedroom door cracked and slowly steps inside. She's standing at her window with her arms crossed. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the door jam. "How can you take her back, Dad?" She asks him then looks over her shoulder toward him. "After what she did, after how she left you, how can you take her back?" She angrily asks, turning and shrugging her shoulders.

"Alexis, can I tell you something?" He asks nonchalantly as he pushes off her door jam. She doesn't answer but recrosses her arms instead. "When Dani came by and asked for your hand, I had no intention of saying yes."

Her brow creases and shock fills her expression. "Dad?! How could you?!"

"I thought you were too young. That you weren't ready to get married just yet."

"But Dad, I love Dani. And we're-"

"Let me finish." He calmly says to her, putting his hands up in front of him to slow her down. "I had no intention of saying yes because I was worried that what I had gone through with your mother and with Gina had affected you, and that you didn't really know what a serious commitment it is. And..." He shrugs and puts his hands back into his pockets, "you're my little girl and if he wants you, he'll have to get you from my cold dead hands, but-"

"Dad." She says sternly.

He closes his eyes and takes a breath. "The point is I wasn't going to say yes."

"But Dani said that you did say yes."

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because he made me realize, after a half an hour, that my feelings aren't nearly as important as yours are, and that I didn't have to like him at all. But what I did have to do is admit that he wants to see my daughter happy, and that he will take care of her, that he will protect her, and make her happy."

"You don't like Dani?" She asks, somewhat sadly.

"Can't stand him." He says, matter-of-factly.

"Dad!" She whines.

"Alexis, you could be engaged to Bono and I'd still find fault with those stupid sunglasses he wears everywhere." She purses her lips and crosses her arms again, shifting her weight to one side. "The point is is that I don't have to like Dani to know that he's a good kid, he makes my daughter happy, and will give her a good life or so help me-"

"Dad." She corrects him again.

He smiles and puts his hands on her arms. "I'd love it if you liked Beckett, Alexis. But I'm not going to make you. I love her and she wants to put things back together. So, can we agree that I don't have to like Dani and let you marry him and you don't have to like Beckett and let me be married to her?" Alexis looks down to the floor and nods. "Come here." He says and pulls her into a hug, which she returns lovingly.

"You're still going to give me away, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't dream otherwise, Pumpkin."

* * *

 **A/N: Having a bit of an issue reading reviews. Currently, they aren't showing up in the list. But I can read them when I get the notification email so long as it's not too long. I've only gotten one that was too long for me to read the whole thing, so if that person can send me the last however many paragraphs after the first three, that would be great. Hopefully the issue is resolved soon. Thanks for reading and your support! :)**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: You're going to leave this chapter with questions. Don't think they won't get answered. They will. Don't worry. :)**

 **I don't know how much longer I want to make this story, but I want to finish it with a quickness so I can get onto writing the story I proposed at the end of chapter eight of A Whole New Light, my other story, if you haven't read that. *Issue with reading reviews has been resolved, feel free to review all you like!*  
**

* * *

She closes her eyes and tilts her head back, letting the almost scolding hot water shower over her face. She turns and lets it cascade down her hair and shoulders, massaging her. It feels like a dream to be showering here again. She's been in here for a good half an hour, and hasn't even made a move to start actually cleaning herself. She's just been standing under the water, drifting off.

Once every few minutes, she'd wipe the steam off the door to see if he's on his way in to join her, but feels let down when she doesn't see him. And this time, when she sees the bed in the mirror empty and unmade, she reaches over for the soap. After another ten long minutes, she shuts off the water and reaches for her towel. But her hand comes to a dead stop right before her dripping wet hand grabs one of the two hanging on the rack. She looks between them, both white and plush with dark gold trim to match the marble floor. Which one was hers?

Her throat starts to close up and she finds herself shaking away tears, forcefully. She concedes to grabbing the one on the left and presses her face into it with a hard push from both her hands. These were their towels, they bought them together when she first moved in here after they got married, along with a few other things that were placed around the loft that were her choice to make it her home. She remembers vividly being very annoyed with him when he'd accidentally use her towel, and now she can't remember something this simple? And why is she having to swallow yet another wave of pain at something so stupid?

She runs the towel over her face and into her hair, finally drying herself off and wrapping what she hopes is her towel around herself and goes out to their bedroom to get dressed. She's staring at the floor, feeling a very unwanted and very hard pull of hopelessness drown her system. Why does her own marriage feel like a memory she'll never get back? "Hey." His cheerful voice says to her.

She looks up and sees him standing at the mirror with his hair perfectly combed, his jeans perfectly cleaned, his light blue striped shirt tucked in with only two buttons done, his fingers slowly working at the rest. Once his eyes find hers in the mirror, he turns around, shirt only half buttoned. He casually makes his way over to her with that perfect smirk of his with those perfect sky blue eyes shining over at her, and it's then that she feels herself thrown back to their time as newlyweds.

Where this would elicit just the right nerves in just the right places that would have him putting those clothes back on after a quick round in their unmade bed. But this time, she looks at the center of his chest being hidden away behind the buttons of his shirt. "Something wrong?"

She acutely shakes her head and looks up at him after he pulls her from her sub-conscience. "I-I..." She stutters, "I couldn't remember which towel was mine." She says, clutching the towel, that now feels alien against her skin.

He smiles from ear to ear and leans forward, pressing his lips to her forehead while his fingers fiddle with the buttons on his cuffs. "It's the left one."

She feels her shoulders relax when he turns back to the dresser. She feels warmth start to creep into her stomach as she softly pads over to the closet, seeing it's almost exactly the way she left it when she tearfully packed a single bag. But the instant that memory starts to stomp the effect he just had on her, she looks over to him as he tugs on his collar, forcing herself to think of how handsome he looks and only how handsome he looks. "You look nice, Castle."

He turns his head and smirks in her direction. "I would say the same, but you have something in the way." He says and leans against the dresser.

She raises a brow and takes a step into the walk in closet, but stays leaning out. "What's that?"

"The towel." He purrs.

She bites her tongue and takes the towel off, hanging it by two fingers out of the closet and drops it with a flare. That warmth is now engulfed her and she practically skips over to her side of the closet to get dressed. After throwing on a white blouse, black slacks and heels, she strolls out of the closet and turns the corner to go through the office. She takes one step and feels her wrist being grabbed. Her heart slams as she's pulled off to the side.

But once she realizes what's happening, she melts into him. She falls forward against him as the kiss deepens, their tongues delve, and he pulls a deep, long moan from from her. Her arms snake around his neck and her fingers weave into his soft hair, the pleasure and passion radiating off his lips squelching any guilt she would feel for messing up his perfectly combed hair. His arms go around her and hug her against him while his hands slowly and strongly roam her back. After seeing just how deep she can kiss him, she lets him go, letting their heads rest together.

His hand finds a place low on her hip as the other continues to press against the small of her back. "How'd you remember?" She asks, leaning back and taking her hand out of his hair and placing it onto his perfectly shaven cheek. "Which towel was mine." She continues.

He lets out a light chuckle. "You always sleep on the left."

She takes in a small sigh and nuzzles her nose against his, snaking her arm back around his neck. "This was normal for us, right?"

"What do you mean?" He asks, feathering a kiss along her jaw line.

"Before I left," She starts, her eyes fluttering closed as his lips continue their barrage of tickling attacks against the crock of her neck, "were we this..." She lets her words fall, simply because of the fact that her thoughts are being stolen and replaced with the feeling of his teeth softly grazing her skin, "this..." She rasps, "in love?"

She feels her neck pulling toward his lips when they leave, then lifts her swimming head up to meet his wondering gaze. "What are you asking me, Beckett?"

They make no move to separate, instead she leans more into him, snaking her arms more around his neck. "When I think back to when we were together, something about the memories I have of us just... seem..." She shakes her head, at a loss of words to describe how they feel in her head.

"Tainted." He finishes.

She nods. "And now, when I think back... was this normal for us?"

"What, this?" He asks, nodding his head downward.

"Did I ever just step out of the shower and see you standing there looking just so perfect, have to beat you off with a stick so I could get dressed, then you'd just grab me up and kiss me like you were-"

"In love with you?" He finishes for her, to which she answers with a small nod and an arched brow.

"Was it like this everyday? Were we this affectionate all the time?"

"Kate, why are you asking me this?"

"Because it feels like I just let it pass by!" He finally gets it out of her.

"No, you didn't." He reassures her, pressing her into him a little more.

"Castle, I couldn't remember which one of the towels was mine."

"In your defense, they are identical." She leans her head off to the side and silently pleads with him to be serious. "We married, Beckett. We spent every day together, of course we had our off days, and as much as I try to correct it when it happens, we're going to have days when we just don't fall into step. Were we this passionate every minute of every day? No, but that in no way means we were any less in love with each other. But, to answer your question, no, it wasn't like this all the time. But I will say this," He reaches up and runs a finger behind her ear, making a smile blossom onto her face, "not a day went by where we didn't try."

She lets her smile take over her face. "Really?" She asks, looking back down to his lips.

"Yup," He says, lacing his fingers together behind her back, "and that's what makes us great. We don't always pull it off, but we always try."

"Yes, we do." She says, leaning in and capturing his lips again.

After a few more all too short minutes of kissing, they go back into the living room for a few minutes before she departs to meet Lanie for lunch. She's seconds away from texting Lanie back and canceling even as she closes the door behind her, even as she calls out to him that she loves him as it does. But Lanie wanted to finally sit down and catch up with her, and it's a good time with only two days of her time off left before she gets back to the precinct at the bottom rung where she started.

She's in her cab, their sweet nothings floating around in her head. They feel so disingenuous in her head. She knows it wasn't them that tried. It may just be the tainted memory, but it was always him that tried, and her that waited for him to try hard enough. She shakes her head and bites down on the inside of her cheek. After a few inwardly angry seconds, she closes her eyes and makes a promise to herself that she promises herself she was will keep before she makes it.

She won't wait for him anymore. She won't let it be up to him and him alone to make sure they strive forward. She won't let their burden bear on his shoulders. She won't let herself fall back into old habits. And she won't let a day go by where the fact that she loves him isn't the one things he's the most sure of in the world.

* * *

"I love you." She calls out as the door slides closed.

Once she hears her footsteps disappear down the hall, he feels himself ice over. He quickly goes into the office and opens the desk drawer, clipping his holster on and putting a casual coat over it. He opens the bottom drawer and picks up the phone that lay beneath meaningless papers crammed in file folders. Going out on the street, he looks over his shoulder before making his way to the news stand on the corner, handing two singles to the man and picks up a copy of the Times. He flashes a smile and starts walking down the street, putting all sections in a passing trash can but the ads section.

He stops at a bus stop, looks around to check if he's being followed, leans against a tree and starts checking. After a quick thumb through, he finds it. _Paul Revere is selling two oil lamps, needs buyer at noon._ It then follows an address that he commits to memory. He checks his watch and sees he has a half an hour.

He doesn't want to do this. Doesn't want to do this to her. He just wants her back, no strings attached. He wants it all to be over. He knows the longer he goes without telling her, the worse the fallout will be when she finds out. He closes his eyes and forces the guilt down as he boards a bus.

After a twenty minute ride, he steps off, finds the building he's looking for, heads to the third floor, and opens the door marked with a C. It's lit with nothing more than the dusty, yellow windows. There's no furnishing but a square table in the very middle with a laptop sitting in front of it, with what looks like a thumb drive off to the side, and a chair. He shuts the door behind him and takes two steps inside. The laptop screen lights up and on the screen is his father. "What-"

He quickly, but silently puts his finger over his lips, then waves him over. Castle pulls out the chair and sits down. His father then holds up a single piece of paper, with a message written in black marker. _See the device to your right?_ Castle picks it up and holds it in front of the webcam. He then sees him flip down another piece of paper. _Press the button in the middle._ Castle presses the button as commanded and sees a red light light up on one end. "We can talk now."

"What was that?"

"Making sure no one's listening."

Castle looks around the single room apartment. "I thought I'd be seeing you in person."

"Can't do that, Richard. Not with the way things are turning."

"So whose this Rita?" Castle asks, getting right down to business.

"All I can tell you is in the file taped under the table." Castle reaches and pulls off the duct tape and feels a large plastic bag, covering a file marked classified. "There's enough there for someone as smart as you to put together all the answers."

"Who's Lok-sat?"

"They're nobody."

"They cost me two years of my marriage. I deserve to know who they are." He demands.

"Son, Lok-sat is just an old designation given to a group of accountants in the Justice Department that were responsible for figuring out how drug cartels laundered their money into the US. They don't exist."

"If they don't exist, then why did they try to kill Beckett, and her team at the AG's office. And what about Bracken and-"

"Read the file, Richard. You'll figure it out."

He sighs, still not having any real answers. "So who is Rita and what does she want with my wife?"

He sees his father look off to the side and nod. "I only have a few seconds, son, but I can tell you she's not after your wife. And son, before I go," his father raises a hand to stop whoever it is off screen, "remember what I told you about contingencies?"

"Yeah."

His father raises another piece of paper with two words written on it. _Fallen Dove._


	16. Chapter 16

She strolls into the small corner cafe with a calm confidence with the first thing she notices being the feeling of her lips pushed up into a small smile, even overwhelming the smell of overdone fries in the fryer and salt in the air. She sees Lanie stand up out of a booth near the end, in typical Lanie fashion. "Alright." She says, planting her hands on her hips, greeting her with nothing more than a blank look. "How was it?"

Beckett stops, her arms half way up, about to hug her friend. She gives her a confused look. "How was what?"

Lanie crosses her arms, shifts her weight, cocks an eye brow, and purses her lips.

And Beckett deflates, letting out a long breath of defeat. She sits down across from Lanie and leans back with her hands in her lap, while Lanie sits down and begins to tap her fingers against the table. And as she begins to flip through the memories of the past few days, her center starts to tingle and warmth engulfs her. "He took me back." She says, not looking at Lanie.

"Girl, the last time I saw that look in your eyes, you two had just jumped out of bed and down to a murder scene together for the first time." It's then that Beckett looks up to Lanie to see the corners of her mouth betraying her feigned anger. She points to herself with her thumb. "I know that look, Beckett. So spill."

Her smiles widens for a moment before she forces it to fade so she can talk. "We had just taken down Mathis, and he came to make sure I was alright after he had taken me hostage. Next thing I know I'm telling him I love him and will wait for him for as long as it takes." She lets her words fall as the memory of his abrupt kiss claims her mind.

Lanie cartwheels her hand. "And?"

She lets out a breathy chuckle before continuing. "He grabbed and kissed me, and it felt-"

"Girl, if you don't get to the good part, I'm gonna give you another concussion!" Lanie exclaims.

Her mind then flips to the feeling of her hands pushing him into his apartment, then his pushing her against his door, then her legs wrapping around him as he carried them to bed. "It felt just like our first time all over again. Both of us still angry at each other, but so desperate for each other it didn't matter. It's been so long, so every thing felt so new and unexplored, but we've done it so many times so it felt like neither of us skipped a beat. And he knew just what to do." She says, having to bite the side of her bottom lip, just as she did when his lips ventured. "He was amazing." She lets her voice fall as she surrenders her mind to her memories.

After a few seconds, she remembers she's in public and is sitting across from her best friend, who when she looks up, is looking at her like she's watching the ending to a bad romance drama. "I knew it would only take a few days for you two to be tangling sheets again." She hides her sappy expression by covering it with sass as she reaches for the glass of club soda sitting in front of her.

She reaches for the sparkling water sitting in front of her as she tries to force her mind to go other places. "It feels so much longer than that. A part of me still can't believe I've only been back less than a week." She pauses to take a drink then sets her glass back down. "Being around him but not with him has been torture."

"Did you talk?"

"We apologized, and agreed that we would give it another shot." She simply puts, omitting the emotional roller coaster these past two days have been as he's been chopping his way through the jungle that is her own feelings and emotions on their marriage.

But when she looks back over to Lanie, she didn't buy it. "What, you just apologized? That's it?"

"What? We talked about things. He wants us to be together again... a-and I love him. I'm not going to leave him again." She defends herself with her voice a half step higher than it usually is.

Lanie sighs deeply and looks down, leaning forward on her forearms. After a few slow, agonizing, torturing seconds, feeling herself getting washed away by a rising tide of self doubt, Lanie starts. "Have you ever been to a strip club?"

Beckett looks back up to Lanie, brow pushed together at a question out of left field. "Once when I turned eighteen, but I-"

"No, a regular strip club." Lanie stops her with an eye roll and pursed lips. Beckett stops herself from letting her mind go back to that dingy, smelly strip club her friends dragged her to under threat of death, watching them act like primates on PCP.

"No, I can't say I have, Lanie."

Lanie smiles. "Javier made me promise never to tell this to anyone, but..." Lanie leans back. "If you go into a strip club anytime of the day, any day of the week, you will find some of the most miserable men this planet has to offer."

Beckett looks up, pressing her brow together in curiosity, which Lanie obviously gauges.

"All men, no matter who it is, no matter what they like, they all want one thing." Lanie's expression softens. "They want an emotional connection."

Beckett feels a sharp, heavy twinge strike through her.

"Now, while it may be more visual with men, it's universal. All men, and especially Castle, want someone more than someone who they can come home to and talk about their day with. They want someone they connect with on a level that can't be put into words, and you can take that to the bank, because I'm quoting Javier on that one. And I've known Richard Castle for going on ten years now, and I know for a fact that there's no one else on this planet that he wants to feel that with more than you, sweetie."

A response regurgitates itself. "We're married, Lanie." She pitifully defends with a shake of her head.

"And I'm a vegetarian, but I'm still ordering a cheeseburger."

Beckett scoffs and looks back down to her lap, down to her left ring finger, where she's been vigorously spinning her wedding band. "I love him, Lanie, but I don't want to fall into this trap again." She admits, squeezing her eye lids to force cool her eyes. "I don't know who's more afraid to talk about our problems, me or him." She bitterly chuckles to herself. "I know he loves me and I know we should be better than this. I'm his wife, for god's sake." She scolds herself.

"Well," Lanie starts, "then I think it's time you let him be your husband."

* * *

Castle lets out a shallow sigh, the folder sitting open and papers riddled with classified markings sitting across his desk. He was right about one thing, it didn't take him long. He understands it all and it's not her fault. She's just as much of a victim in all this as he is. Now the only battle remains in telling her about this or not. He sits, leaned against his desk, eyes staring off into space as he faces the windows, which have the curtains drawn. He can't lose her again. He told her that they were suppose to weather anything together, but what good are words if the heart never hears them?

He's startled out of his hypnosis by the sound of the door opening, and the quick blur he sees entering leaves him guessing that it's her. He quickly scrambles and sweeps all the papers into the top drawer of his desk and slams it shut, then quickly going out to meet her. He steps out of his office and sees her pushing off her coat, her eyes shining and looking directly at him. She grabs his face and kisses him.

His lets his hands go around her waist and pull her in, but he returns with the kind of kiss he knows she's looking for. It's the kind of kiss she wants because she wants out of the whirlpool her emotions have her in. The kiss ends with a wet pop and her hands find solace in the small cove created between her and him. "Kate, what's-"

"I never felt more alone than I did right after you walked out of my apartment that day you told me everything." She says with tears in her voice.

He looks back and the hopes he had of their kiss ending the flow of her tears get dashed.

"I felt more alone than ever because I finally realized that you didn't just leave, I pushed you away, and when I was facing my own death, I didn't want to push anymore."

"Beckett, I-"

"Sometimes, the most painful memory I have is watching you walk out of the precinct with Gina on your arm. I was just two seconds and one syllable away from having what I didn't even know I wanted all along, and I let it slip away. I tried to pretend to be angry at you, but I never hated myself more than I did that summer."

Castle finally understands what she's doing, closes his mouth and watches as her eyes get glossier and her fingers get tighter around the seam of his shirt.

"When that bomb went off in my old apartment and I was laying in that tub, the only thing I could think was that you were coming. That was the only thing. My ears were ringing, the heat was so intense, I was naked," she says on a chuckle, "but the only thing going through my mind was that you were coming. My rational brain knows that it was just the shock, but part of me wants to think that it was something more."

He starts to run his thumb back and forth against her hip as her voice starts to even out.

"When I think back to when I was shot, I think of a lot of things, but the thing I wonder the most is what I would have said if I could have said anything when I heard you say that you loved me. And I try to tell myself that I would have said that I loved you too, but I know I was too much of a coward that-"

"Sometimes when we kiss, my mind flashes back to the day I saw you kissing Demming and I find myself kissing you as hard as I can. I still can't figure out if it's to try and out do him or just mark my territory. Either way, every time I remember that sight, it still stings." He says.

Beckett's eyes grow wider, her brow arcs a little more and her hands fan out flush against his chest.

"Every time we'd fight as a couple, I find myself thinking back to that day I was standing in observation watching you shatter the whole world I'd built around you. It gets me angry because every time I think back to that day, I try to convince myself that somehow it wasn't you who lied to me, and when that doesn't work, I try to justify it. And when that doesn't work, I think back to the day you finally said that you loved me."

Beckett closes her eyes and cranes her head forward.

"Sometimes I try to think of which hurts more, you getting taken from me or you leaving me. In the end it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I'm still going to bed alone and I'm waking up without the love of my life in my arms."

Her hand reaches up and finds his neck, her thumb brushing against his stubble.

"The first time I had to admit to myself that I was in love with you was the night we first kissed. Because I had to admit that it was something that I wanted to do for a very long time, and once I knew what it felt like to have you in my arms and getting to kiss you, getting to feel all that I just had to admit to myself once and for all that I had fallen in love with you. And then once I knew that, I knew it was too late to convince myself that I was supposed to be with anyone else. Despite what I told myself, I always knew it just... had to be you."

That makes her eyes find his again, with a pair of tears just leaving her lashes, but her eyes getting drier. After a long moment of silence, she feels herself leaning into him more than she already is.

"As much as I try, I can't remember a single word of your vows." She feels herself pulling back at this confession. "Because I spent the whole time telling myself... 'I'm actually getting to marry her. She's going to be my wife. A woman this incredible, for reasons still unknown, actually agreed to marry me, and here she is, actually going through with it.'" She feels herself falling into him more than she was before. "The only reason I know what they were is because I found the paper you wrote them down on."

She takes in a deep breath in through her nose, reveling in his scent before she continues. "I spent days sitting in front of an empty pad of paper before I finally found just the right words to express what you mean to me."

"I spend a week, a whole pad of paper, a whole pack of pens and a bottle of scotch."

"Really?" She asks on a light chuckle, ending with a bright smile.

"Every time I'd start writing something, I'd get one sentence and say it wasn't good enough for the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, get frustrated at the fact that a writer couldn't write his own vows, snap my pen in half, then down a glass of scotch to calm myself down because I didn't want any of that frustration to get into my vows."

Her smiles overtakes her face and every feature she has lights up as she buries her face in his chest with a laugh. After a few seconds, her arms go under his and around his chest, hugging him tightly. He smiles and wraps his arms around her, kissing her hair lightly. He lays his head down on top of hers as she squeezes him just a little harder with every breath she takes. His eyes drift shut as a thought skips through his sub-conscience.

This is his wife.

* * *

 **A/N: You can take the beginning of this chapter to the bank.**

 **I know, I'm a guy... and single, so trust me. :)**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Kind of a short chapter, but it felt like a good place to end it to keep the flow.**

* * *

It's Monday, and they both are reluctant to let each other go after the long weekend spent together.

It's almost been like a second honeymoon. Emotional love making, playful bantering love making, playful banter in general. The past few days, he's felt like he has his wife back. Not just Kate Beckett, but Mrs. Castle, the woman who fell in love with him and married him, despite everything they've been through. Getting to kiss her again, the way she does it by framing his jaw with her hands and pulling her self up to him, and sometimes the way she has to stop kissing him because she's smiling too wide to keep her lips sealed against his all the way. Everything has slowly been making him forget everything that's happened between them.

And every time he tries to remind himself of their past, the feeling of her perfect body holding itself against his and knowing that there's a person it belongs to who can amaze him, it would make him say to himself that their past, her past regarding their relationship didn't matter. She loves him and that's enough. But then a small voice would remind him that it's that train of thought that keeps derailing and killing their relationship in the first place.

It's early Monday morning, two hours before both of them are due at the precinct. They are both lying in bed, both still naked and both still very sated after topping off their night of love making with a short, breathless morning of frantic, sheet and pillow tossing sex. After he lets out a long sigh of peaceful bliss, then sees her roll onto her side and prop herself up on her arm, looking down on him with her frazzled curls and a soft smile and half lidded gaze. "I guess we have to go to work this morning."

He lets out a noise that's half a groan and half a moan and reaches up with a heavy arm and takes one of her curls in his fingers. "Hopefully it will be slow."

"We still have that paperwork from the Mathis case. So it will be boring, just filling out our reports from what happened." She informs him while running her finger back and forth against his bicep.

He lets out a short breath and feels a weight press against his chest, a thought coming to mind that he's been suppressing all weekend in lieu for moments like this. She obviously reads him and places her hand against his upper arm and changes her expression. "What is it?"

He's trying to push past the wall his heart just erected. He gave their marriage another shot on the promise he made to himself that he'd be more honest about what he wanted out of it. "Can you make me a promise, Kate?"

She moves her hand to his chest and lowers herself a bit. "Of course, Castle." She says, briefly running her other hand over his hand and straightening out his hair line with her middle finger.

He tries not to get consumed by what things like that do to him, and presses on despite his internal objections. "I don't want your badge to be more important than your wedding ring."

That obviously struck a chord. The motions of her hand come to a stop and her brow hardens. He remains stoic, not jumping up and profusely apologizing like he would have two years ago. She lets her eyes fall back down to the mattress. Somehow, he can feel her get colder, he thinks he can even feel goosebumps run down her leg against his. She pulls her hand away from his hair and puts it back to cradle her head. "Wh..." She starts, but stops herself as her expression screws together a little more. "Why would you ask me that?" She asks, clearly trying to make it sound as neutral as possible.

"I want us to... for once, be honest about what we both want from all this. Because we've fallen into this trap before. Trying to go our own way because we weren't honest with each other, and our relationship was the one that suffered."

"How?" She asks with a little force, interrupting him.

"Do I have to mention your job at the State Department?" Her brow screws together and she shakes her head, but he continues, ignoring the sting that the realization that this is now a fight caused him. "We never talked about what either of us wanted, and I'm taking the blame on that where I deserve it. I didn't want to talk about because it took me that long to just get you, and I didn't want to rush into anything that you didn't feel prepared for, and I almost lost you because of it."

"Castle, you know that if I didn't take that job, I would have always regretted it." She's pulled away from him completely at this point.

He leans up. "Then how long will it take before something more important than me comes along again?" She's taken back by that, leaving her gasping for a rebuttal. "This wouldn't be an issue if this only happened once and we course corrected. But you've failed this test every time it's been given to you. I love you more than anything, Kate, but at what point does that not become enough for you again?"

"How dare you try and say I haven't taken us seriously, you mean everything to me, Rick."

"I do? Because you mean everything to me too, but there's not anything I would let come between us." Her expression softens a bit. "I wouldn't leave you for anything, Kate. Nothing. Because there is nothing more important that our marriage to me. So how long do I have to wait before something takes you away from me again because it's more important?"

"What do you expect me to say, Castle? What do you _want_ me to say?" She asks almost rhetorically.

"That I love you and if they want me they're going to have to drag me away kicking and screaming."

"You don't think I want to feel that way? I wish I could just be naive and say that the threat of your death hanging over my head day in and day out can be outweighed by just being with you, Rick. But if I knowingly stayed with you, and something happened to you because of it, there is _no_ way I'd ever forgive myself. Because you _are_ everything to me and I don't want to go through the hell of grieving for someone that I love, and especially not the one person I've ever been truly in love with, okay?"

His next argument comes out of nowhere. He stares into her glossy eyes and remains stoic. "What if we had kids?"

This question shakes her more visibly than any other. He can visibly see her shake and get thrown off beat by it. "Wha... what do you mean?" She says in a weak, shaky voice, talking past the lump in her throat.

"What if we had a baby before you left? Would you leave your child for two years, leaving without a trace?"

"This is hypothetical, Castle." She angrily hisses under her breath, her hair falling slightly in front of her face.

"If you can leave your husband for that long, what's to stop you from doing the same thing to our child?"

"We don't _have_ kids, Rick!" She spits with clenched teeth.

He pauses and reads her expression. She doesn't want to admit that she would have. But he knows the change a person goes through after having a child. It's something that changes you on the most fundamental level, it changes you to the core. Because the instant he heard Alexis's cries echo off the walls of the delivery room, he felt himself change for the better, that he could never put himself first again. He had to put her first, always. "Is this your way of saying you don't want kids?" She doesn't answer, but sniffles and wipes her eye. He gives her a moment to answer, and after she shows no move to do so, he continues. "Because we never had a real talk about it."

She lets out a soiled breath. "I can't say I never thought about it in passing." She says finally after a long, think silence between them. "I just... I-I..." She lets her words fall. And he can guess as to what she's thinking. "A part of me never wanted to be a mother because I never thought I'd be good at it, and I didn't want to put a child through that." She pauses to dab her nose. "But we never broached the subject, so I guess I didn't want to think about it."

"Then let's broach it." She finally meets his gaze, surprised. "Let's talk about it then, honestly."

She nods, somewhat confidently. "So..." She shrugs her shoulders, "you want to have kids with me?" She asks, obviously very nervous about the question.

"In a heartbeat." He answers her without thinking, and without pause, because he didn't need either one.

Her eyes widen a bit and she seems taken aback again. "Wha... really?"

"Raising Alexis was one of the hardest things I've done, and I had to do it alone. But if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't hesitate."

"Y-you wouldn't... really?"

"No. It's just..." He lets his gaze drift, "the feeling you get when they look at you that only your child can, the feeling of just... pure joy." He looks back up to her, and sees her fending off a smile. "It's something I want to experience with you, Kate. Because aside from being your partner, there are few things that have made me a better person than being a father." She nods and lets her eyes fall back down to the bed, deciding now to pull out another argument he was saving for when they cooled off. "And thinking about what the offspring of two people as good looking as us has me real confident in our chances."

Finally, a smile breaks her face in two and she lets out a silent laugh and lets her head fall down to the bed in hysterics. He feels himself smile softly, and he leans over and presses his lips to her scalp. She lifts her head back up and tosses her hair back, smiling over at him. "So..." She starts, going back to running her finger along his bicep, "you really think I'd make a good mother?"

He reaches over and gently cups her cheek, leaning over and firmly kissing her, which she deeply moans into. He releases her and her eyes flutter open. "You'd make a great mother, Kate."


	18. Chapter 18

It's quiet in the bullpen of the precinct.

She's sitting quietly at her desk, Ryan's old desk, filling out her reports of what happened with Mathis, casting glances in her husband's direction, whose sitting in a chair in the conference room, filling out his own share of the paperwork. Being an official consultant to the Twelfth has its downsides for him. She misses him. The emotional distance that likes to creep in between them makes him seem so much farther away than he is. She wants to say that it's getting better. And part of her believes it is. They're back together, after all, and he's made himself clear on what he wants from her.

It's just something that she thought she was giving him all along.

He wants to come first. He wants their marriage, their life together, not just his life alone to come first. She thought she was doing that by leaving. She loves him so much that she sacrificed her life with him to keep him alive. She loves him she blew up all they built to protect him... even at the cost of the love he had for her. She hesitates to break her hazy focus on her paper work to look up into the conference room, where she sees him staring down blankly at his own stack of papers.

He said he still loves her, but was that always true? Does he only love her because she came back? She pauses and intently drinks him in, looking at him the way she's caught him doing over the years. There was never an instance where she thought she didn't love him. There were times during her time on the run when she would clench her teeth and physically bite back the tide of emotions. It didn't always work, but it was necessary to keep her focus so she could get back home... and come back to a husband that stopped loving her because she left.

She sinks her teeth down into her lower lip inside her mouth and shakes her head, looking back down to her report. She knows that's not true. It was admitting that that caused him to take her back in the first place. But part of it has to be true. Why wouldn't he stop loving the woman who up and left after he made his main concern her happiness? And she was happy. There aren't many times in her life that she looks back on and can say with confidence that she was happy, but their engagement, their marriage, even their time spent together in secret when they first got together, she can say she was at her happiest.

But now, her marriage seems like a fleeting dream. She feels a weight hit her when the light catches against her wedding band and sends a gleam into her eye. What has she done to them? She left him, her husband, the man she vowed to stay beside for the rest of her life. It's a promise she was ready to make and committed to keeping, and one that she would make again... and again, for as long as he's willing to keep taking her back. Her grip on her pen tightens and her hand starts to tremble at her frustration.

It was a promise she was only supposed to make once, because it was a promise she wasn't supposed to break. Whatever her reasons for leaving, intentions being selfless and good aside, she left when she promised she wouldn't. She knows him well enough to know that he'd never do that to her if he were put in the same situation. He'd through all the caution he could to the wind and stay with her through it all because that's just the kind of man he is, the kind of husband he is. And she betrayed that trust he put in her when she left.

When the gleam of her wedding band shines in her eyes again and she looks down at her ring finger, if feels heavy, like she doesn't deserve it. She shakes her head and flips her pen onto her desk, stands up and heads into the break room with her coffee mug. The blinds shutter against the door as she shoves it open and she heads to the coffee pot, finding it empty. She groans loudly, sets her mug down on the counter and goes foraging through the cupboards, looking for the kind of coffee she likes best. Castle always kept their coffee selection wide and well stocked, but as she looks, she can't seem to find it.

She sighs heavily in defeat and braces herself against the counter, running a hand into her hair.

After a long moment in silence, she hopes that feeling she senses behind her is him. "Everything okay?" He asks in the way he always does. Making it seem like a casual question when he knows something is bothering her on a deeper level than that.

She pushes her hair aside and stands up straight, turning around to find him standing at the door to the break room with his hands in his pockets. She smiles for a moment before answering. "We're out of Sumatran is all." She knows he doesn't buy if by the look in his eyes right as he shoved off the door jam and closed the door behind him.

She looks down into the bottom of her mug as he approaches her. "Actually, I stopped buying it." She looks back up to him, seeing he looks as if he did something wrong. "You're the only one that likes your coffee that strong." She nods and looks back down into her mug as he slowly approaches her. "I can make you something if you tell me what's really bothering you."

She looks back up to him, into that same soft look of loving worry. The lump in her throat won't let her ask. His affection seems undeserved, so she rejects it. "It's nothing." She knows he won't buy it, but he will buy that she doesn't want to get into it and will leave it alone until later. Which he seems to do, puts a hand on her forearm briefly before pulling away, letting her catch a glimpse of his own wedding band. Something in that moment breaks past the barrier she erected. He's her husband, she can't do this again.

He starts to pull away, turning to briskly walk back out into the bullpen, and she speaks. "Did you really think I stopped loving you?" Her question doesn't have any firmness or confidence behind it, but it has weight.

He stops right before stepping away from her, and she can hear him let out a long breath. He doesn't meet her eyes, instead looks down to the floor and takes a step back to lean against the counter. "It was an easy explanation."

She wants to rebut, tell him that there was never an instance that the thought crossed her mind that she loved him any less than the day she married him.

He continues after a moment. "A part of me knew it wasn't true, and I knew it wasn't. But after a while... I stopped staring at the door waiting for you to walk through it again. It's easier to believe that the woman I love just stopped loving me back and left me, try my damnedest to accept it and move on than it was to fool myself into believing that she was somewhere out there, still loved me, but left me anyway."

She's on the verge of tears. "You really thought I stopped loving you." She says as a statement of fact.

His neck cranes, as if in guilt at the admission. "I don't know what's supposed to hurt more. The fact that the love of my life stopped loving me, or the fact that I still loved her anyway."

She feels her heart quiver inside her chest. She sets her mug down and takes a step toward him, ready to latch onto his face and reaffirm that she never stopped loving him, but she restrains herself, knowing that's nothing than temporary satisfaction using the guise of veiled progress. She closes her mouth and balls her fists. "Castle, before she died, my mother was my best friend. And if I had to give up every moment we spent together if that meant her still being alive, I'd do it. That's just the kind of person I am."

"Beckett-" He says with a shake of his head.

"No, Rick, I'm not defending myself here." She says, her anguish revealing itself in the shake of her voice. "I'm not defending what I did to our marriage... or to you. You don't deserve what I did to you, never mind what my intentions were when I left. I've never loved anyone the way I love you, Castle... and I don't always know what to do with that." She says on a bitter chuckle. "When I lost my mother, it killed me but I managed to come back from it, but Rick... I'd _never_ come back from losing you. And when I was faced with the threat of that, I reacted the only way I really know how and I ran."

"I'm not going anywhere, Kate." He says with a lift in his voice, finally turning to face her.

She smiles sadly, "That's why I love you so much, Castle. You've been by my side through everything, never once giving up on me, because that's just the kind of man you are. And I repaid you by throwing away everything we built together. And you're right. I have my reasons and I know they should matter, but they don't. Because I know you, and I know that if you were put in that position and were told that you'd have to give me up to protect me, you'd find a way to get us through it and come out stronger. And you'd do it because you love me."

"Yes, I do." He says with confidence. "But is that enough to keep you around this time? I've forgiven you for leaving me the first time, because I wanted my wife back. And you're right, I do love you. But... trying to keep with being more honest... I want that to be enough for you, because it is for me."

She nods her head, even though feeling that she's not putting much promise and conviction behind it. "Then let's be honest." She says, looking back up to him. "What do you want from us?"

He shrugs one shoulder, takes a step forward and looks down to her waist, and she can tell by the tingle on that part of her skin that he wants to reach out and tug her into him. "I want to grow old with you. I want to get into fights with you, you threaten to non-lethally shoot me, I threaten to dedicate a book to an ex-girlfriend." She has to swallow a chuckle. "I'd like to... maybe raise a family... because thinking of the faces you'd make trying to feed a baby as stubborn as you would be the funniest thing _ever._ "

A stubborn smile wants to break out across her face, but she physically bites it back and shakes her head. After a pause, she takes a breath. "You'd really think I'd be a good mother?" She asks almost under her breath.

He lets out a soft breath. "Kate, there was a moment in my life when I knew that I'd never put myself first again, that I'd do..." he shakes his head, "absolutely anything for someone else, that I knew I could never put myself ahead of this person ever again. That moment was 9:47 AM on the eighth of October, 1993 when my daughter was born." She's heard the story of her birth from him before, but never like this. "I know you, Kate, and I know you'd be a great mother because I know what I was like before Alexis was born, and I know what I'm like now."

She looks down to the floor, shaking her head in a small motion. "What about Meredith? She didn't seem to change much." She tells him, looking at him under the veil of her hair.

"The difference is you have a soul."

The smile she's been fending off wins out and breaks out over her face, making her chest contract in giggling laughter. "So..." She says, grabbing onto his elbow and putting his arm around her midsection then entwining her fingers behind his neck, "you think we should try?"

His brow raises, "Here in the break room?"

She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. "Serious question, Castle."

He smiles and tugs her into him, "I think we should."

She feels that loving warmth envelope her, "And you're ready to deal with a pregnant me?"

He looks off and shrugs his shoulders, "I'm sure the captain would be willing to let me borrow the holding cell once or twice."

"Yeah, you're gonna need one after a crack like that." She says, going to playfully pinch him. They laugh and banter for a few minutes before chastely kissing each other and things simmer down. "So since we're out of good coffee, I'll go out and get us some."

"You don't have to, I'll get it." He kindly offers.

She shakes her head. "Nope, I still owe you 998 more coffees, and you're with the Twelfth in an official capacity now, Castle." She grabs his lapels and snaps them down. "So get back to work." She says and pats his cheek.

She brisks her way out of the break room and out to the elevator, making her way downstairs, out the door and two blocks over to the small cafe they go into. She goes past the people on their laptops at the tables and the few stander-bys and goes to the counter, orders their two coffees, pays, then goes to the table to put the creamer and sugar. She feels someone come up next to her, so she moves to the side to give them room. "Hey kid." The familiar voice says.

She looks up and sees a familiar redhead, that sends a shock wave through her. "Rita? Wha..." She quickly scans the room, "what are you doing here?"

"I got word they're coming for you again. I need to move you to safety."

"Wha... How can they be back? Sebastian Colt is dead, it's over." She argues.

Rita looks around over her shoulder, "Apparently someone filled the vacuum and their cleaning house, starting with you. We need to move."

Kate feels herself harden, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety, dashed hope, betrayal, and what she can only say is her old self trying to cloud its way into her. But as she turns back to the table with their coffees in hand, she looks down at them. Something inside of her shifts drastically looking down at those two white cups in her hands, breaking past and tossing out everything else. All she's left with is iron-willed conviction. She quickly turns back to Rita, whose looking at her expectantly, and quickly answers her. "No."

Rita shakes her head and smirks as if she doesn't believe her. "Beckett, this isn't a joke. They're going to kill you." She says under her breath.

"I don't care." She responds confidently.

"Beckett, if you don't come with me, they're going to kill you and your husband."

"I'm not leaving him again! Do you have any idea what it feels like to come back to the love of your life and have him look at you like you're a complete stranger? It's only by some miracle that he took me back and gave our marriage another shot and I'm not throwing that in his face by leaving again. I love him too much to put him through that again."

"Beckett, they're going to kill him the first chance they get if you don't get you out of here."

"I'm not leaving my husband again." She says with unwavering certainty. "That's final."

She makes that her last words, steps past Rita and heads for the door, heading out into the cold. She'll tell him about it when she gets back. If they're going to end this, they'll do it together. She makes the size of her strides longer against the winter wind and turns the corner. She feels something wrap their arms around hers suddenly. Her body starts fighting before she realizes it, and by the time she thinks of what to do, there's a black bag over her head, and another pair of arms grabbing her kicking legs.

She hears a van door open, trying to scream over the hand on her mouth. As she struggles, she has a clear mind to do one thing, and one thing only, which she makes the quick move and does so, before she's carried into the van and she feels the thug against her head and everything goes dark.


	19. Chapter 19

He tugs on his sleeve, pushing it out of the way to look at his watch again, seeing that it's been more than forty five minutes.

A worrisome lump is forming in the back of his throat, his heart rate is starting to escalate every time to doors to the elevator open with her not being on the other side, and her chair is starting to receive looks from Ryan, Esposito, and Captain Griffin, wondering where Beckett is. He hasn't looked down to his share of the paperwork sprawled out on the table of the conference room for at least fifteen minutes, looking for anyone to start moving at a quicker pace than normal, or to flag his attention, needing him. After looking at his watch and seeing only thirty seconds has passed, he huffs and quickly stands up, shooting out into the bullpen in a brisk walk, flagging down the first person who might help. "Hey Ryan."

Ryan looks up with a folder in his hand. "Yeah?"

"Have you seen Beckett?" He asks, motioning toward her desk with his hand. Ryan looks behind him with a wondering gaze as Castle continues. "She left to go get coffee forty-five minutes ago and hasn't come back."

Ryan's brow shoots up as he takes out his cell phone, putting it to his ear after a few seconds. Castle listens intently, for ringing at the very least. Instead, it goes straight to voicemail. Once he hears her voice telling Ryan to leave a message, his throat closes. Just then, Espo comes up to the pair with an even thicker folder than Ryan's. "Hey Espo, have you seen Beckett? Castle says she left about forty-five minutes ago and her phone's turned off."

Esposito's brow straightens, stoned faced. He tosses his folder down onto his desk just next to him and goes into the tech room, where Tory has a screen of traffic cam footage up. "Hey Tory, when did you say that blackout happened?" Esposito asks her.

"Blackout?" Castle asks.

"What blackout? Of what?" Ryan finishes.

"About a half an hour ago. Why?" Tory asks, turning around to face the trio.

Esposito turns to explain. "I got a call from a uni that all the traffic cameras on this square block went to static for a second, then came back up." Castle's heart starts racing, his nerves jittery, throat tense and wanting to yell, feet wanting to run, and fist wanting to punch the nearest hard surface.

"Yeah, and what's weird..." Tory interjects, turning back toward the console, "it lasted exactly one minute. 10:46 to 10:47."

"This sounds familiar." Ryan says, stating the obvious to everyone in the room.

"Lok-Sat." Esposito answers for him.

Castle keeps his mouth shut, but corrects him in his head. He knew that she was coming, but hoped at the very least that she would just come after him and leave his wife out of it for once. If anyone can give her what she wants, it's him. The phone in his breast pocket seems heavy, but he knows he can't call him. Chances are he knows what's going on already and wouldn't pick up anyway. But there is one person he does need to call, which he starts doing with his regular phone already to his ear as he steps out of the tech room. "Hi Dad."

"Hey Alexis, listen, I need you and Danny to come down to the precinct. Now."

"Uh... Okay, but why? Is something wrong?"

His protective, fatherly instinct kicks into high gear, "Just get here as quick as you can, and Alexis..." He says, making sure she hears this part.

"Yeah?" She says, a very evident shake in her voice.

"Be careful, okay?"

They say their quick 'I love you's' and hang up. He pockets his phone again and goes back into the tech room where Ryan and Esposito are going back and forth. "But how could they do this again? I thought after what happened at the prison with Bracken, the city updated their security. This new system is supposed to be unhackable." Ryan says.

It's here that Castle interjects himself into the conversation. "After what happened two years ago, what the city did is put all the traffic cameras on one signal, closed circuit. You can't hack into the system, but I don't think they did that. Tory," He says, approaching her side. "Bring up a map of the city and show us what cameras went out."

A digital overlay of the city comes up on screen, with over a dozen red dots emerging from the center of the screen. "These are all the cameras that were blacked out."

Confirming his suspicions, Castle sees that the dots form an almost perfect circle. "Take the farthest cameras and map the epicenter of the blackout." With a few clicks of the keyboard, a digital animation maps the epicenter of the blackout, and pinpoints a building, giving them an address. "That's the address of the coffee shop Beckett went to." He says, already moving out the door.

Ryan and Esposito quickly scramble to catch up to him as he runs toward the elevator. "Wait, Castle!" Esposito calls. The three quickly reach the elevator and get in after the doors open. "Castle, what's going on? I thought this was all over. I thought that's why she came back."

"I was never about her, or Bracken, or her mother's case. She was just a pawn in something else."

"Well, what?" Ryan asks.

Castle just shoots him a stern, dismissing look, not ready to delve into the long story of what he knows. Saving him from doing so is the ding of the elevator doors opening. Castle is the first one out, taking off in a quick run down the side walk. Coming to the corner, he stops and looks down. There's a large spot in the snow, melted with a pool of brown liquid, steam still rising from the heat. Castle catches his breath and bends over, picking up the cup on the left, knowing what it says. "This is Beckett's coffee." Knowing the drink order immediately.

Castle takes off in another run, leaving Ryan to stay behind on his phone calling for back up and Esposito to follow him. He reaches the coffee shop, throwing open the door and slowing down to quick walk toward the counter. "Was there a tall brunette in here about an hour ago? Ordered two coffees?" Castle asks out of breath, on his phone to pull up her picture. "Looks like this?" He says, showing the barista a photo of his wife.

She nods. "Yeah, she was in here. Why?"

"Anything out of the ordinary happen?" Espo asks over Castle's shoulder.

"Not really?" The barista shrugs. "I heard her arguing with someone for a second, I think. Older women, red hair. Sounded serious." Worst fears realized, Castle swipes a few more pictures over. "Why, did... did something happen?"

"Was this who she was arguing with?" He asks, showing her mug shot.

The barista nods vigorously. "Yeah, that's her."

Esposito tugs on Castle's arm to get him to show him the picture. "Wha..." Espo starts before Castle cuts him off, continuing his questioning of the barista.

"What were they arguing about?" He asks seriously.

"I couldn't tell, I was busy with another order. But I could tell that the younger lady, the brunette was pretty serious whenever she walked out."

"What about the older lady? After she walked out, what did she do?"

"Uhm..." She says with a shake of her head. "She got on her cell phone I think. I couldn't tell what she was saying, but whatever it was, it only lasted a few seconds."

Castle lets out a long, tense, unsatisfying breath that does nothing but unsettle his nerves even more. He turns quickly and makes his way out of the coffee shop, Esposito on his heels. The pair walk quickly back to the precinct, coming up to the corner where the lights of a patrol car are flashing and Ryan is standing directing uniforms. As Castle and Esposito come up, Ryan jumps toward them. "So I got uniforms canvassing the area. Informed the Captain that Beckett is missing, he's gonna get the word out to the local news, get her face out there."

"We're gonna get her back, bro." Espo says, fruitlessly. Castle just sends him a look and turns back toward the precinct. He can feel that Ryan and Esposito are following him, but doesn't turn back. He's sick of all this. He just wants his wife back, he wants his life back.

Once the trio get back into the bullpen, Castle finds Alexis waiting for him as he steps off the elevator. Alexis jumps off the bench she's sitting on and throws her arms around her father. "Dad, what's going on? They just told me that Beckett's missing."

"I'm fine, Alexis." He comforts her in the softest, most reassuring voice he can muster. "Something's going on and right now, this is the only place I trust to keep you safe. LT," He calls over, LT stands up with a raised brow, "Stay with her and Danny, don't let them out of your sight. Whatever's going on, I want to make sure they are kept out of it." He orders, leaving LT to simply nod as he goes around them and into the bullpen.

"Wait, Dad-"

"I'll explain later, Alexis." He shouts, moving back into the tech room, where Captain Griffin is waiting for them.

"I've got the news showing her picture, uniforms canvassing, whole calvary's out there looking for her. So far, nothing."

"That's all they're gonna find, too." Castle mutters to himself, but it didn't remain unheard by a few people in the room.

"I'm still trying to figure out what they did to the traffic cams, but I'm not having any luck." Tory says.

"Manhattan is supposed to have the most advanced traffic cam system after what happened two years ago, how could they hack something like that?" The Captain thinks out loud.

"They didn't hack into the system, they just flooded it." Castle states, catching the eyes of Tory, Captain Griffin, Ryan, Esposito, and even Alexis, who disobeyed her father and is standing at the door.

"Care to explain, Mr. Castle?" Griffin orders.

"After what happened, the city took all the traffic cameras in the city off using the internet to relay information, and used closed circuit. But the problem is they used wireless circuitry and set all the traffic cameras to one signal that only the city had access to."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't explain how they were able to hack into it." Ryan says.

It's then that Tory's lights come on, and she starts following Castle's train of thought. "No, I get what he's saying. They didn't have to make us close our eyes, they just had to shine a flashlight in them." She spins around on a heel back toward her console.

"All they had to do was piggyback onto the signal the cameras were using and fill the system with junk-data so the system couldn't make sense of the video it was supposed to be shooting." Castle finishes.

"Is there anyway to separate the junk data from what the original traffic cam footage?" Alexis asks.

"I could try, but it's gonna take a while."

"And my wife doesn't have that long." Castle hisses, turning and exiting the tech room, leaving everyone else to wonder, and Alexis to follow him into the break room. Castle meanders toward the center of the room, running his fingers through his hair, trying to steel his nerves. He knows what he has to do to get her back. "Dad?"

He turns toward his daughter, who's worried not for his wife, but for her father. "It's gonna be alright, Alexis." He says, not knowing what the purpose of saying that is. Probably saying it to himself.

"No, Dad... I'm worried about you. I mean, Beckett's back for two weeks and she's already getting kidnapped again? Dad, you're not safe around her." She's angry, hopefully just projecting, not knowing how else to deal with the situation, seeing her father is angry.

"Alexis, the people who kidnapped Beckett are not after her." He tells her, putting his hands on her arms. "That's why I wanted you here. I didn't want you to go looking for me."

"Looking for you... wait, Dad, what's going on?!" She asks, eyes glossy.

It's then that Ryan and Espo enter the break room. "Tory's working on separating the junk data from the traffic cam footage now, she says it'll be a few hours, four at least." Ryan says.

"Castle," Espo starts, shutting the door behind him and checking to see that no one's coming, "you know way more than what you're letting us in on. I'm tired of this, man. What's going on?"

Castle lets out a breath and shakes his head. If it doesn't work out, someone needs to know. "This had nothing to do with Beckett, she's just a means to an end at this point. She's just being used to get to me."

"You, why?" Ryan asks.

"Because I'm the only person that he cares about."

"Castle, who are you talking about?" Esposito asks.

"My father."

Without another word, Castle steps around Ryan and Esposito and heads out of the break room into the bullpen. "Dad, where are you going?" Alexis shouts across the bullpen.

"Stay here, Alexis." He says, looking back to give her a firm look. "I'm going home." He says to himself.

The cab ride is long, and oddly short at the same time, his time spent looking at two pictures on his phone, one of Alexis and the other a selfie of him and his wife, taken in bed. The cabbie gets his attention and he pays, stepping out into the cold in front of his building. He heads up and stops once he reaches his door, seeing it ajar. Just as he thought, they're either waiting for him, or are long gone after finding the file in his safe. He closes his eyes after standing at the doorway for a minute, takes a deep breath, checks to see if the phone is still in his breast pocket, and thinks those words to himself. " _Fallen Dove."_

He pushes the door open, calling out to make it seem real, "Beckett?"

After taking one step inside, he feels a heavy thud on the back of his head, and he's out.

* * *

 **A/N: Long hiatus, no excuse, lost inspiration, going through stuff. Hope you enjoy. Let me know. :)**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Last actual chapter for this story. It all gets wrapped up here. I've enjoyed writing this story overall, and I will also finish A Whole New Light once I put up the Epilogue to this story, which will be a nice conclusion to this story. I hope you've enjoyed reading, and what I've done to bring our favorite couple back together. Let me know in the reviews. :)**

* * *

"Ri..." He hears a voice call from the distance.

"Cas... Rick, hun..." It calls again. He can feel his head move, but it aches with a sharp pain in the center, surrounded by a throbbing dull pain. He feels his eyes open and tries to pull his aching head up, noticing that he can't move his arms. He can feel them, but can't move them. "Castle, speak to me. Come on, baby."

"Kate?"

His eyes are open, his vision focuses, and his mind is clear the instant he realizes it's her voice that's calling out to him. He hears her let out a deep sigh of relief and a bright smile flash its way onto her face. "Oh Castle, thank god you're okay."

"Beckett, are you alright?" He asks her, sitting up as much as he can in the wooden chair he's bound to.

"Yeah." She nods from the chair she has her hands bound behind, sitting perpendicular to him, to his right. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was so worried they were coming after you, Castle." She says in a desperate voice, leaning toward him. "Rick, I don't know how, but they're back. I thought I ended it, but they're back."

They're sitting in a large warehouse, surrounded by what look like clear, plastic, chemical containers, with light from the dirty brown windows above providing light. From the condition, it looks like it's been abandoned. He looks over to his wife, and he can tell by her body language, her leaning toward him, her arched brow, and just the look of wanting desperation in her eyes that all she wants to do is wrap her arms around her husband. But his mind is in a completely different set right now. It's set on ending this.

"Did they take anything off me?" He asks, seemingly out of nowhere. She answers with a shake of her head and a confused look. "When they put me here, did they take anything out of my pockets?"

"Wha-I... No, they didn't." Her eyes narrow as he looks down toward his breast pocket. If she's wrong and they took it, things could go south real quick. "Castle, what's going on? Lok-Sat is after me, why did they take you? I thought they were going to kill you." He doesn't meet her eyes at first, but after a few harsh seconds of silence, he looks at her face with a craned neck, seeing a hurt look on her face. "You know some-"

She stops at the sound of a metal door being opened, followed by a pair of echoing footsteps, fast approaching them. Kate leans back and her face starts twisting in anger, but he can already tell he has a deep, stone faced scowl put on. A pair of men come around the corner, dressed in all black, one bald with an untended five o'clock shadow, the other heavy set with shaggy hair, holding a sub machine gun, which he can tell is government issue, for black-ops maybe. "Never thought I'd see you again." The first one says to her.

"I've never seen you before." She spits quietly through clenched teeth.

"Well... not in person." The first one says, waving a Beretta in the air nonchalantly. He sees Beckett's nostrils flair with anger and her arms test the strength of the ziptie binding her hands. "Now I've been asked to find out what you know, and that he was the best way to do it." He says, pointing the gun at Castle's head. Castle doesn't flinch, knowing it's a show.

"You leave him out of this." She hisses. The man shrugs his shoulders and takes aim. " _Nooo!"_

A shot rings out, but Castle feels nothing. He quickly opens his eye sin time to see a double tap ring out, seeing a cloud of pink shoot from the second mans chest, then once from his head. He falls to the ground with his gun clattering next to him. Castle breaths a sigh of relief, but it only lasts for a moment as he sees the figure who saved them step out from around the corner, holding a large hand gun. "Rita." Beckett says, seeming to be relieved.

"I told you they were coming after you, kid." She says as she turns toward his wife. It's then that Castle's blood reaches boiling point.

"Get away from her." He warns in a deep, cold voice.

"No, Castle, it's okay. She's here to help." Beckett tries to explain, looking behind her as Rita goes to her zipties.

"And we have to move quickly."

" _Get away from her!"_ He yells, looking her in the eye, his wrists stinging from him pulling on the zipties.

Rita pauses, looks at Castle, then smiles, chuckling lightly. She stands back up, leaving Beckett looking back and forth between her husbands deep, protective scowl and Rita's jokingly casual smile. "Rita, what... what's going on?

"Kate, she's no more here to help us than they were." He says, nodding toward the two dead bodies bleeding out on the floor, following Rita with his eyes as she saunters back in front of them.

"Castle, what's going on?" She asks, a scared shake in her voice.

"It was her." He states simply, looking at his wife for a second before looking back up to Rita, who's still smiling. "She was behind everything that went on with Lok-Sat."

He can hear her breath, she sounds panicked. "What are you talking about, how do you know this?"

Castle remains silent and just stares Rita down. "It was all her, Kate. Lok-Sat, Braken's murder, the attack on the precinct, going after you, she's behind it all."

Kate is motionless, looking in shocked disbelief between him and Rita. "But..." She says with a shake of her head, "But everyone at the AG's office that was killed, and Bracken, and the lawyers suicide, that hitman... Rita?"

Rita just stands there, holding her gun halfway between the floor and Rick, a menacing smirk on her face. "I don't usually leap praise on someone who tricked my wife into leaving me for two years, but your plan was almost perfect."

"Rick, how do you know all this?" Kate asks, voice tense with nerves.

"Good question." Rita adds.

Castle decides to remain silent, gathering his thoughts, writing his story in his head. "Rick!" Kate shouts, with a hint of pleading.

Castle locks eyes with Rita, whom he hasn't looked away from since she came into the picture. "Thirty years ago, you're fresh out of college, when you're approached by the government, saying that you've been selected to help serve your country. Your test scores were right, your IQ was high enough, and most importantly, you have no immediate family that would come looking for you. So, with nothing to lose, you sign up as an agent for the countries foreign relations department, who set you up with a partner, and have you train together. You two do just fine, but there's just one difference between you two. He was doing it for the job, you were doing it for the paycheck. So when someone came along and offered you a bigger check, you turned so fast, you're probably still dizzy.

Castle sees his wife listening intently, but he can tell by her expression that the thing at the forefront of her mind is how he knows all this.

"The years go by, and everything goes smoothly. You make a very nice living selling state secrets to rogue nations, but there's just one problem. Your former partner turned you in and you want to retire. And you know him well enough to know that you would never be able to just kill him, he's too smart for that. But then you learn of me. Famous writer, met the girl of my dreams, very happily married to her, and that I have a history of going to great lengths for her."

"I was honestly impressed when I heard that you tried to jump in front of a bullet for her. That takes guts." Rita interjects.

"Not as much as it took for her to get back up." He hears her let out a breath that he can tell has a smile to it, but doesn't break eye contact with Rita. "But you figured out how to play that against me. You leak some obscure document that has more black bars than a softcore porno, writing the name of an old NSA handle that some rogue accountants used to hide the fact that they were stealing from drug cartels on the side. And you knew that it would scare just the right amount of people that they would feel they had too many loose ends that needed tied up."

Beckett looks up to Rita then, starting to fill in the rest of the story on her own, her mind going in the exact same direction as her husbands.

"They go after a few people at the top, then they go after my wife. I'm guessing that she was supposed to die in that theater."

"Your wife is talented, I'll give you that."

"You have no idea." He says with a soft smirk. "But when that went south, you decided to change strategies. If you can't kill her, you'll just get her out of the way, make her go missing. You send your goons in and you swoop in to save her in the last minute. She didn't trust you, but what choice did she have? You help her escape, and you tell her... the only way to make this stop is to leave."

"You tricked me into leaving to get Castle alone. So I wouldn't be around to protect him." Beckett adds a thought.

"Not exactly." Castle corrects her, chancing a glance in her direction, the turning back to Rita. "You knew just what to say. All you had to do was say that they'd come after me, and you knew how she'd react. You knew that if you told her my life depended on her leaving, she'd leave and stay as far away as possible until she could come back."

He can see her anger start to boil over in the corner of his eye.

"And you knew that if the love of my life just disappeared... that I'd be just desperate enough to go to the one person who would be able to help, the one person you've been after this whole time, the same person that turned you in for betraying your country, and the same person who was your partner when you first started. There's a tense silence between the three, and he doesn't answer until he sees Beckett connect the dots in her head. "My father."

"I've been after that son of a bitch for five years. I thought I had him in Paris, but thanks to you, got away."

"All this time... you made me leave my husband. I broke my _marriage_ vows because of you!" Kate spits, struggling against her zipties, her legs tied to her chair.

"I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done on your own, sweetie." Rita cracks.

"Once you got what you wanted, her out of the picture, you watched me. You were hoping he'd arrange a face to face meeting, but that never happened. You see, last time I saw him, he gave me a way of contacting him. Just put an ad in the paper with certain words in it and he'd be alerted. A few months after she left, I contacted him and he sent me a phone. It has some unbreakable encryption on it, and it's only keyed to work for one person, only programmed to call one number, and will only work if I say the voice command. So I called him and told him everything, that my wife had left me to chase after people far more dangerous than she realized and I needed his help. He asked me if I wanted him to bring her back, and I told him all I wanted was to know that she was safe. I trusted she'd come around on her own."

He can see tears leave Kate's lashes, but presses on.

"Two years and he never slipped up. Even I don't know where he is. But now, I have my wife back, and no real need for him. So I'm guessing you pulled this little kidnapping out of desperation. You've been playing the long game for years, and it hasn't been paying off."

"I'm just one more kill away from retirement, and I'm not going to let you love birds ruin it. Now how did you figure all this out?" Castle remains stoic and silent for a moment, then Rita nods. "He sent you the file."

"Just enough to where I could fill in the blanks."

"Hmm..." Rita hums before nodding again. "Then I'll make it easy for you. Tell me where to find him or I'll kill her." She says, pointing the gun at his wife.

"Fine." He answers, without hesitation.

Rita looks at him, surprised. "Really, that quick?"

"You think I _want_ that man in my life? He got my own daughter taken from me! That man is a lot of things, but he is not my father. I just want him out of my life so I can get back to it. I'll give you the phone and unlock it for you, on one condition."

"...Being?"

"You leave my family the hell alone."

Rita is silent for a moment, looking at Castle with the same menacing smirk before pursing her lips and nodding. "Deal."

"Coat pocket." Rita steps forward and reaches into his inside coat pocket, pulling on the phone and looking at it. "Now just press the button and I'll say the voice command. It will call him and you two can go kill each other." Rita nods, presses the center button once and holds it up to Castle, who leans forward, still not breaking eye contact with her. "Fallen Dove."

Rita puts the phone to her ear, and Castle tenses himself. Two high-pitched beeps ring out from the phone while Castle closes his eyes and turns his head away, feeling the shock wave and the loud bang from the explosion ringing in his ears. He hears the drop of the body and the clatter of her gun and opens his eyes to see her on the floor, head and left hand gone. He breaths a sigh of tense relief. "It worked."

Beckett, not in the mood to ask questions, slams her hands on the back of the chair, lock of the ziptie lined up where she wants it, once, twice, and the binds coming loose on the third try. She then bends over to untie her legs, and once she's free, she jumps toward her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting out a deep breath. He leans his head into her, both of them breathing deeply. She frames his face with her hands, pressing her lips firmly against his, moaning from the back of her throat as she presses against him.

She releases him with a pop. She lets out another breath as she pets the side of his face. "I'm sorry, Castle."

"Kate, there's one thing I want more than anything right now."

"What's that?" She asks with a watery smile.

"I want to hug you." He says, shrugging his shoulders, indicating to help him with his binds. She laughs and cuts his binds off. Rubbing his wrists, he stands up just in time to have his wife jump into him, throwing her arms around his neck, and he responds by throwing his arms around her and squeezing, burying his nose in her hair, swaying her from side to side.

"Oh, Rick..." She says on a sigh, putting her hands on his neck and leaning back. "You knew about all this, why didn't you tell me?"

He closes his eyes and hangs his head in guilt, encouraged not to by his wife's hand on his jaw. "I just got you back. I didn't want to say anything that would make you think you had to leave again, because Kate, I couldn't handle losing you a second time." He says, pressing her into him.

"Castle, I broke my marriage vows to you once already, I'm not breaking them again..." She frames his face again and brings his eyes to hers, " _ever._ "

"I only found out about Rita a few days ago." He admits. "I should have told you about her, I didn't think she'd come after you. Once I figured out what she wanted, I thought she would just come after me, and that I could keep you-"

"Safe on the sidelines?" She finishes. Castle nods subtly and shuts his eyes. "I love you, Castle... more than you know. And I know I probably don't have the right to say this... but I'm your wife, I don't belong on the sidelines."

He chuckles and presses their foreheads together, nuzzling his nose with hers, "It's always different when you're on the receiving end."

"We'll get better at it, I promise." She leans back with a warm smile. "We have the rest of our lives after all."

He smiles warmly back at her and pulls her into him, hugging her tightly. It's after a few seconds of breathing each other in that they hear a loud barrage of foot steps, and familiar shouts echoing from the room. The step away from each other, but still keep a hold of one another with his arm across the small of her back and hers holding onto his shoulder, both looking in the direction of the noise, knowing whose voices they hear. Right as they see Ryan come from around the corner, gun drawn, they breath a sigh of relief. "Hey, _over here!_ " He calls out.

When Ryan looks around and sees the scene, he holsters his weapon and pauses just as Esposito comes to join them. "What the hell happened here?"

Castle looks over to his wife, who doesn't want to spend anytime explaining by the look in her eye, and starts toward the exit, not letting go of her. "We'll explain later."

* * *

Arriving back home after giving Captain Griffin a quick debrief over the phone, they open the door to the loft, ready to unwind with the help of wine, take-out, their bed, and each other. "So you really think it's over?" Castle asks her, finally letting her hand go as she drifts toward the kitchen, toeing herself out of her heels.

"Honey, it doesn't matter. They can come after me with whatever they have, I'm not leaving my husband again."

He smiles, his heart bursting with love for his wife and pride that she's come this far. He takes their coats and goes to hang them up while she goes to the kitchen to get the take-out menus. And as he turns back toward the kitchen, seeing her with a soft smirk on her face, standing at the counter with her hair tumbling down her shoulders, looking like the angel she is to him, he's caught off guard by the fact that this time, the promise she made to him, to make this their home and to share a life together, she will keep it. Come hell or high water, she will keep that promise, that he knows.

Knowing he's standing in the foyer staring at her, she looks up from her phone with a wondering brow. "Something wrong, babe?"

"No, nothing." He says with a shake of his head. "I'm just glad you're finally home."


	21. Epilogue

**A/N: Declaring it complete after this. Loved writing this story, overall. I hope I managed to tie everything together in a nice, neat package. If I left anything hanging, let me know in a review. :)**

* * *

He tugs her into his side, smiles as he feels her lay her head down on his shoulder, feeling her run her hand up and down his back while he makes the same motion with his thumb against her side, watching her daughter waltz with her newlywed husband across the dance floor, watching their first dance as husband and wife. A father's pride, getting to see her this happy, and she does look happy.

The soft jazz song they chose fades out and the small crowd lets out a small applause. Rick starts clapping, his smile growing brighter as his daughter's eyes meet his. "The dance floor is now open to all the other married couples out there." The DJ announces.

He looks down to his wife and raises a brow, offering his hand to her. A smile spreads across her face, her bottom lips falls in between her teeth, her eyes sparkling. After a moment, her eyes glance off to the side, she takes his hand and escorts him off to the side of the large, white banquet hall, out of ear shot from everyone else. "What's the matter? Don't you want to dance?" He asks.

She lets out a breath and takes his other hand. "There's something I want to us to do first." She says, taking a step forward, only inches separating them.

He smirks and takes the opportunity to joke. "While I appreciate the sentiment and enjoy the thought very much, this _is_ my daughter's wedding day, Beckett."

She rolls her eyes and lets her hands go limp. "Rick, I'm trying to be serious here. I've been trying to get up the nerve to ask this for weeks."

He laughs and moves a hand up her forearm. "What is it?"

She cranes her neck and grabs the sides of his tux, slowly drifting further into him. Words caught in her throat, she lets out sigh and looks up to him after a moment. "I want to renew my vows." He fights back a smile, surprised and taken back by her request. "I was afraid to ask because today is supposed to be about Alexis, but... I-I just..." She struggles for an explanation.

"Kate, you don't have to do that. You've been back for a year and we're better than ever, especially now." He says suggestively, rubbing a hand against her stomach.

"Yes," She starts emotionally, "I do, Rick. There's just some things I need to say to you that won't mean the same thing if I just said them in bed."

He smiles warmly and nods. "Alright. Let's do it." She breaths a sigh of relief and tugs on the sides of his jacket, glad he got on board. "So, I'll go tell everyone, you go get the pastor?"

She shakes her head. She looks off to the side, meeting Alexis' anxious eyes and smiles in acknowledgement. "Go dance with your daughter first. I'll go tell a few people and meet you in the back in ten minutes."

"So I get to dance with my daughter, but not my wife? Okay, I see how it is." He jokes with feigned hurt in his eyes.

She rolls her eyes again and pushes him away toward Alexis. "I love you."

He turns back toward her, "If that's all you got, I'm going to be _very_ disappointed." She fights a smile loses and she goes off, informs a few choice mutual friends and the pastor and tells them to meet in the back room in ten minutes. She makes her way to the back room, a small space, a big wooden desk facing the door, two cushioned chairs and a small table against the wall. She makes her way inside, closing the door behind her, setting her small clutch down on the desk, starting to meander around, going over what she wants to say in her head.

The relatively small banquet in upstate New York is beautiful, in mid-spring, the weather bright, sunny with not a cloud in the sky. Her husband is pressed and clean, a sharp black tux with a deep blue tie, matching the rest of the decor, which is lucky. He looks amazing, that color brings out his eyes so well. And it matches her dress, since Alexis made her a bridesmaid. Her and Alexis have made up significantly since she got back and put her marriage back together. Since she proved that this time she's here to stay, Alexis came around quickly. Seeing her father happy again helped immensely, and she offered her a place in her wedding two months ago when they found out. That proved to her that she was here to stay, for good.

With a knock on the door, she's brought out of running through her vows, smiles and starts toward the door. "Castle, there is no way you danced with Alexis that fast. Go back, and-" She feels her words fall when she opens the door and sees who's on the other side. She forces her throat open and steels herself. "What are you doing here?" She asks in a low voice.

"This is my grand daughter's wedding." He shrugs his shoulders, hands in the pockets of an old leather jacket, stepping around her and into the room. She closes the door behind him and stands there, arms crossed. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. Make sure you were okay. Things like what happened with Rita tend to make waves."

"Yeah, we're fine." She can see past this. That's clearly not why he's here, but he's not ready to admit that he just wants to be here. "You know," She starts, garnering his attention as he meanders around the room, "when Ryan and Esposito found that warehouse Rita had us taken to, they said they received an anonymous tip about a women matching my description being taken into that address."

His expression remains unwavered from the same steely-eyed look. "The phone I gave Richard was programmed to send out a distress signal to me if he were to activate the explosive. Once I got it, I called in your location." He tries to explain.

"The precinct is fifteen minutes out from the warehouse we were in, and from the time the explosive went off to when they came was only a few minutes at most. That's not it."

He looks away for a moment. "I was having Richard trailed. Once I got the address, I called the NYPD. Then-"

"You heard what he said about you. That's why you had the NYPD sent in, and you didn't go in yourself. You heard him say he didn't want you in his life." She concludes.

By the hang of defeat in his head, she knows she got it right. "I was monitoring the situation from a block away. I didn't know Richard had himself captured on purpose to get close to Rita. I called the NYPD once I was sure Rita was actually there."

"You didn't go in yourself because you didn't want to take the chance Rita would actually manage to kill you." She finishes what he doesn't want to admit. He shakes his head for a brief second before that steely-eyed look returns. Her mind floats back to that admission he made just a week after their kidnapping, laying in bed, admitting part of him hurt saying what he said. "You know he didn't mean what he said. He was just playing Rita."

"That doesn't mean he wasn't right." She closes her mouth at that, watching as he cranes his head down and turns toward the window. "You were almost killed because of me, because of the connection you have with me. Richard's daughter was kidnapped because of someone she'd never met. It's better for my son's family that I stay away. I don't want my next grand child to go through what Alexis went through."

Her breath catches and she puts a hand over her stomach. "You know?" He turns slowly meanders toward her again, nodding. She thinks she knows what he's doing here, but won't admit it. "What are you really doing here?"

He seems to self-defeat himself and shake his head. "I just wanted to tell Richard..." He struggles on his words.

"I'll tell him." She finishes for him, knowing what he wants said, but is either too proud, too scared, or just isn't his place anymore. Castle's father nods thankfully and goes to leave without another word. But Kate speaks up right as he passes her. "It's a boy."

He stops with his hand on the knob, looking back at her.

"We're having a boy. I just found out yesterday. I'm telling him today."

He smiles softly, the same way his son does when something surprises him and lifts his spirits. He nods and opens the door, quickly exiting and is down the hall and out of sight. She smiles to herself, knowing he probably means, or at least tired to mean well. Beckett closes the door again and remembers what she's doing here, and slowly paces toward the center of the room, thinking of her husband and what she wants to say. It's just a few minutes more that she hears the door open and Castle peak his head in. "You ready?" He asks, an anxious smile on his face.

"Yeah." She says, a similar smile breaking across her features. He enters the room, followed by Esposito, Ryan, Jenny, Martha, Lanie, the pastor, and much to her surprise, Alexis and her new husband. She looks over to Alexis as everyone takes a place around the room. "Alexis, you didn't have to come here. Go enjoy your wedding."

Alexis smiles, watching as her father takes Beckett's hands. She shrugs, "This is enjoying my wedding."

Beckett smiles even brighter and looks back toward her husband, who's beaming at her. She looks toward the pastor, excitement starting to show in her nerves. "Do you have the vows already written?"

She looks over, the air in her lungs feeling cold. "Yeah."

"Richard?"

Castle smirks and nods. "I got something."

"Well, Kathrine, we'll start with you."

Kate looks in the eyes of her husband and smiles, squeezing his hands briefly for strength. Once Rick's smile softens and he squeezes her hands back, the words start flowing effortlessly. "Four years ago, I made a promise. A promise that I would love you, stay beside you, be your partner and weather whatever storm comes our way together. And while I made that promise with every intention of keeping it, it's also a promise I know I will never fully forgive myself for going back on. That's why I'm here today to make you a new promise, to both you... and our son."

Rick's eyes light up and a surprised smile starts creeping across his face. He mouths ' _really?',_ and she nods, trying to stop smiling so she can continue.

"I promise to love you with all my heart, Richard Castle, that I will never leave you side, that I will be your partner, no matter what comes our way... always."

Kate blinks away the tears she feels starting to burn her eyes as the pastor looks over to Castle. But Castle, still being overtaken by Kate's news, just shakes his head and let's his smile overtake him, pulling her in by the hands. "I love you."

She laughs, wraps her arms around his neck and presses her lips onto his, not really making an effort to kiss each other over their face splitting smiles. "That's all you got?" She says against his lips.

"That's all I need."


End file.
